Steve Petrick: thank you for the clarification.

So back to the former LDR territory discussion. Looks like a six sided war to me. The Lyrans (supported by the Klingons) claim ownership to all territories of the former LDR.

The Hydrans, while unable to mount a credible combat force to contest the Lyran occupation, must not be pleased by the prospect of the LDR reverting back to Lyran total control. (Would the Hydrans fund a covert resistance to the Lyrans using the survivors of the LDR military?)

Orion Pirate opportunism? If the Orion's can keep the Lyrans from consolidating control, there is opportunity for more Orion hidden bases and less chance of any police intervention. (Would the Cartels pay to keep the Lyrans from consolidating control?)

WYN interests? Having a neutral former LDR reduces somewhat the chances of another Lyran invasion... case of the enemy my enemy is my friend... definitely a possibility of covert aid to anti Lyran rebels.

Kzintis covert aid? Little chance of ships but surplus combat rations? Weapons? Fighters? Just how interested would whiskers be?

G.I.A. Mujahadeen funding? Covert aid?

Other possible interested parties?

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, September 12, 2017 - 08:16 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

(Would the Hydrans fund a covert resistance to the Lyrans using the survivors of the LDR military?)

---

---

Quote:

(Would the Cartels pay to keep the Lyrans from consolidating control?)

---

---

Quote:

definitely a possibility of covert aid to anti Lyran rebels.

---

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, September 12, 2017 - 09:46 pm: Edit

Alan, we have discussed before the scope of the game. In each F&E hex has an estimated 1,000 useful places. I know you dispute the figure, but it was published in module F1.

Assuming all or most hexes average four populated star systems (the density of most capital hexes) that leaves 996 other useful places. We have not been told how many would be populated, or are unpopulated.

It was suggested above (SPP perhaps!?!) that the Andromedans did not have the ship strength to hunt down all populated locations in all the various empires.

Why is it difficult for you to consider that some LDR worlds (not Major or Minor sized in the F&E lists) to survive?

If the Andries didn't find them, it would require an investigation by Lyran or Klingon survey cruiser or scouts to locate them, assuming the lacked access to current/updated LDR charts.

You may well be correct in thinking that any such survivors might welcome re-incorporation. But people are not always rational. Particular those who did get attacked by the Andromedans.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, September 12, 2017 - 10:07 pm: Edit

LDR worlds 'survived', its in the history, but anything with significant industrial capability was captured or destroyed by the Andromedans. It has been stated that the LDR was made into a void that they could operate within with impunity.

It was also stated that the Andromedans did not exterminate the population of the LDR, but said population did suffer.

It would be much more difficult for any LDR remnant economic capacity to rebuild a nation and remain indepandant than it was for the LDR to become so in the first place (when they actually did have warp equipped vessels and a healthy economy).

I am of the opinion that the Lyrans are the obvious ones to reclaim that space. Certainly the powers that be may decide if that is so or not, however.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Tuesday, September 12, 2017 - 11:07 pm: Edit

Andro's crushed Chairman Meow Meow because they hate competition. Lyran Empire took it back For Great Imperial Justice. Also, the Klingons weren't interested and the Hydrans ain't suckers.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 10:34 am: Edit

Jeff,

At least so far as I can recall, I have never disputed "the figure". What I dispute is your interpretation of what it means.

When I got home last night, I looked in Module F1 to try to find the quote and get the specific context, but couldn't find it. Are you sure it's in F1? If so, where? I do remember seeing something like that somewhere. I just can't remember where, and I want to review it to make sure I am not misremembering the context.

But pending that review, here is what I think it means; which (to paraphrase Inigo Montoya) is different from what I think you think it means.

Consider a small mining colony in some backwater LDR planet, a few dozen or at most a few hundred Lyrans. They mine the ore and store it until the re-supply freighter comes by (once every few months) to bring spare parts for their equipment and fuel for their one skiff and half-a-dozen or so shuttlecraft, and to pick up the ore they have mined. In F&E terms, maybe it produces ¹/₁₀₀ of an EP.

They have a long range communications system in case of emergencies. From this, (and from talking with the freighter's crew during its occassional visits) they learn that there is some kind of major war going on but that their government is trying to maintain neutrality. The only way the war effects them is that their quota for ore production is increased. Later, they hear about some previously unknown empire which is apparently trying to enforce peace on all the other powers. But this new empire touches their day-to-day lives even less than the General War did.

Then - the freighter doesn't show up anymore. Their equipment starts breaking down. Some items they can jury-rig to keep operational. Others will have to wait until the freighter returns. But the freighter doesn't return. From their communications system they learn that still another previously unknown empire has shown up, but this one has invaded the LDR with devastating power and cruelty. The colony leaders decide to cease transmissions, to avoid betraying their presence to to these new invaders. They maintain a "listening watch" and learn that their capital has fallen. Then... silence. To preserve their limited supplies of irreplaceable fuel, as well as to avoid giving away their location, they cease all spaceflight.

The colony survives but they no longer mine ore, turning all their efforts to simple survival. They are forced (HORROR OF HORRORS!!!) to take up agriculture and eat PLANTS!!! The indigenous wildlife provides a small supply of meat, consumed only on special occassions.

Then one day, years after they have lost contact with any outside system, a Lyran warship appears...

Now (if I am recalling the context of that "1000 useful places" correctly - but see above) this is a "useful place". But it is strategically meaningless. I submit it is very likely they would welcome that Lyran warship - and reincorporation into the Empire. A few of the old timers might recall exactly why the LDR had split from the Empire. But it would have as much relevance to their current situation as The War of Jenkins' Ear (yes, there really was one) has to British/Spanish relations in the 21st Century.

And even if they were minded to resist, they would have no means of doing so. Recall your own remark from 9:20 AM yesterday about a small freighter with a single phaser-3. Now, their might be dozens, even hundreds, of such isolated colonies within former-LDR territory. If they could combine forces they might have some military potential (assuming they still had fuel - which hadn't gone bad yet). But these colonies have no way of coordinating or combining. Each is an individual entity that remains independent only so long as no one shows up to claim it. And racially, they are still Lyrans. Presumably some half-remembered political dispute from long ago will weigh less heavily that the fact that a Lyran protector is bringing them fuel and spare parts (and meat!!! or at least spare parts for the food replicators that haven't functioned for decades). All they need do in exchange is loyally serve the Lyran Empire (a far preferable alternative to serving the Hydrans or Klingons, the only other plausible options.)

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 11:03 am: Edit

I'll note that the average province contains 5 hexes and at a wartime economy produces 4 EP per year, so the average military production at wartime status is 0.8 EP per hex/year; which, assuming 1000 per hex is 0.0008 EP per useful place/year on average....

These places are not getting together when the infrastructure and trade that let them produce even that pittance is gone and doing anything to resist conquest or a claim.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 11:14 am: Edit

Douglas,

I'm assuming some of those "useful places" produce no economic output at all - are in fact a net loss to the province's total economy, but are useful for other reasons.

Consider a small scientific outpost studying an unusual stellar phenomenon in an otherwise non-descript system. There are no habitable planets so the outpost must exist in a sealed environment on an airless world. Keeping that outpost operational costs resources and produces nothing but "pure science" with (so far as anyone currently knows) no practical value. But it is an "important place", though strategically insignificant.<sup>*


*</sup>I seem to recall that in SFB a scientific outpost does have a special sensor. So it could, if in an appropriate location, act as a sort of early warning post, though its useful life once hostilities commence is likely to be very brief.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 11:16 am: Edit

Special sensors probably aren't all REALLY created equal if you want to non-abstract things into little details.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 11:52 am: Edit

Small Scientific Outposts do not have special sensors.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:09 pm: Edit

Ahh. Then I have misremembered on that point. But whether they do or don't, it is irrelevant to what seem to me to be the main issues regarding the probable fate of the LDR territories after the Andros are defeated.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:19 pm: Edit

Alan, How can there be a loss if nothing is expended in support or equipment?

More importantly, if a colony is as bad off as you state above, why not cut a deal with the Orion Pirates? Surely the stealth bonus of Orion ships (even the slaver, iirc) makes traffic between to abandoned colonies worth while. Plus the Orions certainly would appreciate a safe harbor for themselves, and can literally provide all of the spare parts and fuel a cut off colony might need. (At discounted prices! No taxes being collected by the central government.)

If given enough years, such a colony might well develop both population and even Pirate subsidized defenses.

As you yourself pointed out, the various colonies could be cut off for years at a time... some might never be contacted.

Just seem odd that the Lyrans would be the only empire with an nterest in the former LDR.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Other empires (than the Lyrans) are interested in the former LDR territory but have less ability to do something about it, as said earlier.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:37 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Alan, How can there be a loss if nothing is expended in support or equipment?

---

---

Quote:

... why not cut a deal with the Orion Pirates?

---

---

Quote:

Just seem odd that the Lyrans would be the only empire with an nterest in the former LDR.

---

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 01:41 pm: Edit

It can be assumed that all governments make some effort to keep some locations secret (say a prison colony or perhaps some research being done in tip top ultra double secrecy, or etc.).

But by and large just about every colony in most empires is going to be known, because you are going to be boarding freighters, and capturing planets, where shipping data will be captured, and the data will be input into the very advanced computers and will point to the locations of colonies, and what cargoes have been sent to them, and what cargoes have been extracted from them.

Suffice to say that the Andromedans, by the start of the Andromedan War, knew the locations of virtually every colony of every empire, including some of the supposedly secret ones.

Did they visit and occupy or destroy every one of them?

No.

Had they won the war, there is little doubt they eventually would have gotten around to many of them, particularly the ones they thought posed the most danger to them (any colony that might provide a base of operations) and from which they most wanted the resources for "Andromedan reasons" (which might not be the same as reasons of a given galactic power).

Some colonies will become extinct because of the Andromedans, but not by direct Andromedan action. Some colonies are completely dependent on supplies arriving from off world/site, and the life support will fail, the replicators will not have enough raw material to convert into edible foodstuffs, the water sources will be inadequate, and so on. Because a lone freighter has no chance without the coordination of a business enterprise to gather the things needed from sources to deliver to one or more of these colonies. Plus the lone freighters themselves will begin to break down due to lack of adequate maintenance.

While Orions might look to some of these worlds as supply sources themselves, it is written in the "dark history" that even the Cartels were destroyed by the Andromedans, and without the Cartel system to keep their ships supplied and maintained, even the Orions would soon be "swept from space." Because the isolated colonies cannot produce the parts and fuel to keep the Orion ships operational.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 02:09 pm: Edit

SPP,

Understood - but there is another issue. How much of the knowledge has survived after the Andromedans are defeated? It seems to me to be at least plausible that the knowledge of the existence of some of these minor colonies may have been lost (especially in the case of the LDR) because the sites where the records were kept have all been... converted to rapidly expanding clouds of superheated gas. There might be "lost colonies" that no external entity knows about. I think this unlikely for genuinely important sites, but a real possibility for small outposts and such.

And even if the knowledge does survive in a database somewhere, searching all possible databases for obscure sites that might or might not have been obliterated (or died out for reasons you cite in your post) would seem a low priority.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 02:21 pm: Edit

I have a hard time imagining a destruction so complete outside of near total genocide where you lose track of your colonies and outposts. All but the most secret would have be listed in many databases, family would know where their kin was stationed, shipping companies would know what their regular routes were before the invasion, etc.

If you needed a site for some fiction reason you could make a secret corporate site hidden from the government or a black ops location only a few people who were killed off knew about but they would be the exception.

If I were in charge reestablishing contact would be a very high priority. I need the resources they provide if they are a mining site. I need the food if they are an agricultural colony. If they were a scientific outpost even if the research being done is now low priority and I want to shut it down I want those personnel to reassign them somewhere important.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

Things you are overlooking.

The Lyran Empire is going to have a database on the LDR, and their database is going to be as complete as they can make it. Both from before the LDR broke away and from spying on the LDR afterwards with the idea that maybe some day it will come back into the fold, either willingly or by force.

The Hydrans and Klingons will have databases based on their trade with the LDR, but also looking at the potential that some future conflict may require their respective empires to "acquire" LDR Space, and because some other empire (Lyrans and Hydrans in the case of the Klingons, Klingons and Hydrans in the case of the Lyrans, Lyrans and Klingons in the case of the Hydrans) might attempt to use LDR space.

There is also the Daven and Hamilcar cartels who will have databases on LDR colonies (for obvious cartel reasons).

There is probably also a database maintained by the Jindarians, although I suspect that one would be the least complete.

Just in general any other empire may have assembled a database on the LDR economy (and on the economies of every other empire) because alliances are tricky things (today's friend might be tomorrow's foe and vice versa) and knowing what can be provided in what quantities allows judgments to be made on strategic possibilities.

Remember, we are talking about empires with very advanced computer systems able to handle and more easily provide data than the "country books" kept and provided by the CIA (and other agencies) today.

The upshot is that there might be recently established colonies, and even some hasty set ups as the collapse was happening, that are not mentioned, but by and large the blasting of the LDR databases when Demorak fell does not mean there are suddenly large numbers of LDR "lost" colonies. Indeed, internal shipping needs could well mean that an adequate database exists on one or more commercial platforms that the Andromedans did not get around to blasting on relatively prosperous but unimportant colonies elsewhere in LDR space.

But when the Andromedans are pushed back, the Klingons, Hydrans, and Lyrans (possibly assisted by the Orions and maybe even Jindarians . . . this last has more doubt than the Orions but is possible) will have a pretty good idea of where the extant LDR colonies were before the fall of Demorak, and it is doubtful any colony able to survive alone for five years was not listed (a colony not able to survive five years, i.e., from the assault on Demorak to basically the start of Operation Unity probably did not make it).

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 02:58 pm: Edit

Jon Murdock:

Agricultural Colony is a loose term and is NOT limited to "foodstuffs."

Many an agricultural colony exists because the vegetation they provide has medicinal values.

Most of agricultural worlds are not generally providing food stuffs to other worlds (there is some of that, of course), but are providing "luxury foods." Things that those with wealth can afford and cannot be grown elsewhere but have exotic flavors and spices.

The latter two cases are why the Orions will raid an "agricultural world," because just grabbing a cargo of corn or wheat has no payoff sufficient to finance the raid, but grabbing 5 tons of Drugs that were produced by raising 150 tons of X crop is a large profit margin.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:07 pm: Edit

Jon,

I'm less confident than you are that data on minor outposts would be listed in "many" databases. I agree they would be listed in multiple places, but most of those are probably in the LDR capital; and destroyed together when the capital was hit. Other databases (payroll, for example) might have information on the number of people at the colony but no (or only very general) location data, since the latter is irrelevent to the that database's function. Corporate databases might have info on corporate colonies - but the corporation no longer exists and the relevent info is sitting in a shut-down (though still functional, were someone to find it and think it worthwhile to turn it on) computer in a deserted building among hundreds of other deserted buildings in an abandoned (and irradiated) town.

Family know they have (or had) kin stationed on "Murdock's World"... but do they know where "Murdock's World" is? How many American families had relatives stationed at Camp Anaconda but, given an unlabeled map of Iraq, could not have pointed out to within 50 miles where Camp Anaconda actually was? Even worse, what if "Murdock's World" wasn't even the official name of the location in government databases? What if that was just the derogatory nickname that the poor #!@*&s stationed there called it?

And reestablishing contact may or may not be a high priority depending on how important the colony was. If you are trying to get multiple mining colonies back up and running, and have very limited resources, the mining colony that produces unobtainium will be a far higher priority than then the one that produces iron ore, especially if you already have several iron mines already operational. The poor #!@*&s at the latter (if they are even still alive) may have to wait a few years.

That, at any rate, is how it seems to me.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:18 pm: Edit

SPP,

Well, maybe. You certainly have more authority and information in this area than I do. But I couldn't help being a little amused by your citation of CIA "country books". Speaking from my own experience (military aviation), I know that there were quite a number of things we knew about the Soviet Union that, after the Soviet Union fell, we found out were very wrong. Of course, I'm talking about a fundamentally different (and intrinsically more secret) kind of information (capabilities of aircraft/missiles/etc. Soviet war plans, particularly as they related to nukes) than the location of colonized planets. But over the years I've come to believe more and more that NO ONE ever knows as much about what's going on as they think they do.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Petrick:

In the SFU is most food created using some kind of replicator technology or is there still a need for basic food crops?

Alan:

Even if you do not need the colony in question I would still send a ship to see if they are still alive. Even if I cannot afford to get the place running I want the trained miners from the iron ore mine to get them working again. The ship might show up and find no one alive in which case you beam down, download any logs, do whatever your species does with the dead, salvage anything valuable, and move on to the next colony.

It is not a long flight to most of these lost outposts. A dozen small civilian Free Trader ships hired for the job and using skiffs assigned to check out nearby systems could probably visit every low priority system in the LDR in a couple of months. Faster if you set up a PF base in the center of the LDR and send a PF each to see what is going on. If there is some vital part or whatever they need to survive you divert a ship or cargo PF to the planet and do not worry about getting it up and running. If it is small enough you send a ship to evacuate everyone.

Even in the more militant empires I would not want to deal with the PR disaster of finding out that a colony bravely holding on with jury-rigged systems and extreme rationing died off two years after the Andromedans were driven out because we were not willing to spare a single ship for a quick flyby.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Regarding my comment above about things we "knew" about Soviet capabilities that turned out to be way off; I recall that my last Air Force TDY was to a missile conference at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. One of the speakers was an engineer who worked in "technical exploitation" of foreign (mostly Soviet) missile systems. He remarked that during the Cold War there was ample money available for engineering analysis of Soviet systems but it was very hard to get a hold of actual weapons to analyze, especially the most advanced models. Now (which would have been the early/mid 1990s) he complained that we could just go out and buy many of these systems - but there was so little money in the budget for technical analysis. (Peace dividend and all that... why waste money procurring and performing complex analyses on systems that (so the beancounters reasoned) would never be used... Boy, THAT sure was prescient!!!)

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:41 pm: Edit

I imagine that quite a lot in those books was correct however. Perhaps more than half, I speculate?

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 03:46 pm: Edit

Alan Trevor:

And none of the data alluded to is comparable to what was unknown about the Soviet Union. For that matter, much of the data not known about the Soviet Union is unknown about Canada (Canada is a separate nation, and while an ally, does have secrets that it keeps from us, and us from them, because of the age old rubric as mentioned before, today's friend may be tomorrow's foe).

We do have secrets we keep from our southern friend (Mexico) because we know that the level of corruption down there is such that the secrets can (and most likely would) be sold. Heck, at one point in my service I was not authorized to visit Mexico on my own (that is go to visit Mexico while on leave) because of the possibility of being abducted. (And to this day I will admit I could not see Soviet agents taking that much interest in me despite what our government thought. Does not really matter as I have never visited Mexico in any case.)

But databases on the movement of goods are pretty much going to tell you where the colonies are, and really the bases, even if the Sweeps by their sensors did not give them away.