[META] [RFC] Militarization around the 2022 period

[KJ]

What it says on the tin... I touched on this in the main thread but I think maybe we should have a split off topic to hash this stuff out.
My idea is to have, post Boskowar (at some point not necessarily immediately) a general "taking stock of things" and a decision to work together at a strategic level.  What I had in mind for PEPPER (Space Arms Limitation Treaty) is some form of agreement to limit the amount of strategic class assets everyone is keeping under their own chain of command.  I know RR and VVS (and probably a lot of others - Warsies and so on obviously and so on) have and are developing strategic level assets and I see no problem with that, IC or OOC.  But everyone sitting independent of each other doesn't do much good for anyone's peace of mind.
Note that details of what constitutes a "strategic level asset" and how many factions can keep for their own uses aren't important for now - and frankly I imagine this leading to a lot of IC bickering anyway.
My vision is the unified command (NATTO - Not Actually Terran Treaty Organization) having its chain of command independent of the interests of the individual members.  How this would happen I'm open for debate; I'm thinking something entirely separate from OGJ in concept and with some aspects determined by bickering committees.    In peacetime, it would be concerned with taking care of things bigger than the Space Patrol and running exercises to simulate various potential *cough*dirtside*cough* opposing forces.  Part of this is as a show of force to people who might think about trying to use force to dictate policy, part of this is legitimate training into a professional volunteer military (as much as is practical with the people involved) and part of this is to have the members of all the forces rotating in and out of the NATTO chain of command working alongside each other, seeing each other as comrades to be trusted and not potentially dangerous people from other factions.
Comments?

[HRogge]

What do you mean with "strategic class assets" ?

[M Fnord]

Hm.

Okay, some thoughts I'd been having on the subject:

* Postwar there's a general agreement at - I think Alphacon's the next one in sequence- to do a general draw down of military forces. Most of the heavy stuff gets mothballed or demilled; for example, the VVS Tu-22Ms get (most of) their weapons pulled and switch from Rapid Offensive Units to Very Fast Pickets. The idea here is that war's over, so we don't need a huge tactical/strategic load sitting on the system's economy dragging everybody down, right?

* OGJ goes from whatever the hell ad hoc thing it was during the war into a unified command like you're thinking of NATTO. Interplanetary Defense Force 'Great Justice' has Haruhi up at the top as Churchillian figurehead with a small army of bickering committees keeping shit operational at the line level. As part of the whole make-and-keep-the-peace thing every faction that's signed to the Convention has to keep a certain percentage (no less than 5% but no more than 25%, just as an off the cuff estimate) of their standing military (if they have one) as part of the Great Justice command structure. This could be a fleet of warships or twenty REMFs depending on the faction.

This is all coming from a dude who doesn't think militaries are all that, so salt as necessary.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[KJ]

Broadly, "stuff that can wreck habitats" as opposed to "stuff that can wreck small/medium size ships" are my dividing lines. Post-OGJ, I don't see factions worrying about defensive fighters very much, but stuff like the Bears, Backfires, Peacemakers...
*quickedit*  Well... I'm coming at it from a "governments have a monopoly on the use of force" angle.  Some draw-down sure, especially with a lot of OGJ stuff being pretty adhoc and inefficient, but... I mean, you're the political separatist IC, are you comfortable with the idea of a dirtside administration or government deciding to come up and play by *their* rules and not ours?
Besides, some factions quite clearly want to develop this stuff out of whatever motive.  Isn't it better to channel that into something less antisocial than "sitting alone on a pile of ordinance glaring at people and occasionally chasing criminals"?

[HRogge]

Broadly, "stuff that can wreck habitats" as opposed to "stuff that can wreck small/medium size ships" are my dividing lines. Post-OGJ, I don't see factions worrying about defensive fighters very much, but stuff like the Bears, Backfires, Peacemakers...

So mostly large scale bombers/missile carriers. I am fine with this.

*quickedit*  Well... I'm coming at it from a "governments have a monopoly on the use of force" angle.  Some draw-down sure, especially with a lot of OGJ stuff being pretty adhoc and inefficient, but... I mean, you're the political separatist IC, are you comfortable with the idea of a dirtside administration or government deciding to come up and play by *their* rules and not ours?

Fenspace politics is mostly consensus and social pressure... difficult to force anyone to do anything if you do not want to go to war (both military or economic) over it.

Besides, some factions quite clearly want to develop this stuff out of whatever motive.  Isn't it better to channel that into something less antisocial than "sitting alone on a pile of ordinance glaring at people and occasionally chasing criminals"?

*LOL*

I think the fact that CI gave away their first Normandy Class might helped to make people less nervous about it...

[M Fnord]

Well... I'm coming at it from a "governments have a monopoly on the use of force" angle. Some draw-down sure, especially with a lot of OGJ stuff being pretty adhoc and inefficient, but... I mean, you're the political separatist IC, are you comfortable with the idea of a dirtside administration or government deciding to come up and play by *their* rules and not ours?

It's a fair cop. I'm kind of looking at it from the perspective of Eisenhower's famous speech, you know "every bomber purchased is a theft from those who are not fed" kind of thing. I get that there's a reason to maintain the monopoly on force, it's just I'm a little worried that without some significant draw-down we're going to set up a Cold War/WoT permanent war scenario. Because, you know, another century of MAD is just what the doctor ordered.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[KJ]

I completely agree that that is also a perfectly valid point. I think that the degree to which to do any of this is potentially a fruitful discussion, which is why there's the RFC bit on the front.

[classicdrogn]

The trouble with a throne of ordnance is that it brings a new meaning to "Fire in the hole!" if you drop your cigarette. Mandatory rotations in NATTO would hopefully teach people that the proper place for such materials is a properly secured, fireproofed armory, and the proper material for thrones is the captured loot of your enemies. Or at least duct tape and the three dozen pizza boxes from the victory party.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Rakhasa]

But why is there need to (yet another) organization -with its extra helping of funding and bureaucrats- like NATTO? Great Justice is already is supposed to be the unified armed forces, with ships and men drawn from the factions; likewise with the Space Patrol and law enforcement.

They may be inefficient for the fenspace of 2022, but I would think that the most logical thing would be to increase their efficency, or even compeltely rework its srtucture, and not create a second organization, which on the surface is identical to GJ, to draw twice the resources.

A full demilitarization is not a good idea anyway; as happened with the Jenga catgirls, the post war period would have left a big percentage of groups unwilling to be unprotected -for good reasons, for paranoia, and for a combination ofthe two. But an alliance where the capacity of violence is on the hands of only a few select factions -and the more paranoid ones of the lot- is a recipe for disaster ont he long range. So the Convention, in the post war years, should have a very high priority on solving this matter. They need to find a balance between the freedons than are the heart of fenspace, the needs for defense, and the needs for a central control of the weapons.

This probably was the main topic in the first post war Con, Alphacon, but such a complex matter would not be settled so fast -for starters, every faction is going to have a very different view on the proper balance of power and military needs- so it will remain a hot topic for years. There is a reason the USA constitution took thirteen years of debates until it went into effect -and needed 27 amendments in the two centuries since.

[KJ]

GJ was a politically expedient emergency adhocracy formed to deal with basically one thing, fundamentally run by one charismatic leader. That's suboptimal for a stable peacetime military, especially given the leader. I'm seeing it more of a "okay, let's go make agreements on our own" with GJ as an organization fading away. But that's me.

[Dartz]

Or slowly getting hollowed out and modified from the inside. The change from Operation Great Justice, to just 'Great Justice'.

Although, I assumed Great Justice would offer grants to settlements to help pay for a local defense..... with the caveats that anything purchased using grant money must meet acceptable standards (Part L of the military spacecraft capabilities specification), and must be available to GJ as a reserve line unit in case of nearby emergency.

The Part L requirement also makes an excellent homologation requirement for the 'Warbirds' class of asteroid racers. They have to have been built in compliance with the grant requirement, have been homologated by GJ and still retain their compliance while racing. Inevitably this leads to several 'military' spacecraft which are really just homologation specials for production asteroid racers.

You also have approved training facilities that must meat minimum standards of instruction, instructor field experience and local unique selling points.

Then there're a whole slew of combat vehicles which are 'combat' in appearance only..... putting them in an actual fight would just get the user killed.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

A full demilitarization is not a good idea anyway; as happened with the Jenga catgirls, the post war period would have left a big percentage of groups unwilling to be unprotected -for good reasons, for paranoia, and for a combination ofthe two. But an alliance where the capacity of violence is on the hands of only a few select factions -and the more paranoid ones of the lot- is a recipe for disaster ont he long range. So the Convention, in the post war years, should have a very high priority on solving this matter. They need to find a balance between the freedons than are the heart of fenspace, the needs for defense, and the needs for a central control of the weapons.

Also we should not forget that the Solar System is still HUGE. If you do not live close to the Fens population centers, help might be hours away.

[KJ]

Or, thinking about it, GJ being hollowed out into more of a UN type of presence, while NATTO being more like NATO in the sense of being a conglomeration of strategic might that people hope doesn't get used.

[M Fnord]

Thing is, we've already got the Convention as the political arm in Fenspace.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[KJ]

Cool, back to plan A of GJ folding into the Convention proper or fading away or whatever. IMO.

[HRogge]

Cool, back to plan A of GJ folding into the Convention proper or fading away or whatever. IMO.

Isn't GJ (not OGJ) just the "military arm" of the Convention? As Space Patrol is the Conventions police?

[robkelk]

Yep. "Great Justice" is the NATO-equivalent; "Operation Great Justice" is another name for the Boskone War.

(Digression: And I see the Space Patrol as Fenspace's equivalent of the Mounties - they have the authority to investigate crimes anywhere in cubic claimed by any part of the Convention, but they leave misdemeanors and "minor" felonies to the local or factional police if such forces exist in the area.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Yep. "Great Justice" is the NATO-equivalent; "Operation Great Justice" is another name for the Boskone War.

(Digression: And I see the Space Patrol as Fenspace's equivalent of the Mounties - they have the authority to investigate crimes anywhere in cubic claimed by any part of the Convention, but they leave misdemeanors and "minor" felonies to the local or factional police if such forces exist in the area.)

sounds good me.

[Ace Dreamer]

I'm pretty sure either the grumblings that lead to the Boskone War, or the war itself, persuaded Brains that it was actually worth the trouble of building the Mauler that he'd designed. This is a normally invisible space craft which is shaped like a cone on a sphere, where the height of the cone is the diameter of the sphere - 150m diameter, 300m long ('teardrop'?). He calls it the "Turtle".

This ship is conventionally unarmed, but has amazingly good, nested, force screens, and super heavy tractor-presser beams, along with tractor shears. There are also a number of beam weapons which can, at short range, suppress fission and fusion reactors, as well as a number of the more exotic Fenspace power generation systems, such as cosmic energy screens. However, these beams don't shut-down life support systems.

The main problem this has is that it's slow. But, you've got a good chance of getting where you plan to go.

Is this the sort of ship that people would be concerned about being in private ownership, after the Boskone War?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[HRogge]

I'm pretty sure either the grumblings that lead to the Boskone War, or the war itself, persuaded Brains that it was actually worth the trouble of building the Mauler that he'd designed. This is a normally invisible space craft which is shaped like a cone on a sphere, where the height of the cone is the diameter of the sphere - 150m diameter, 300m long ('teardrop'?). He calls it the "Turtle".

This ship is conventionally unarmed, but has amazingly good, nested, force screens, and super heavy tractor-presser beams, along with tractor shears. There are also a number of beam weapons which can, at short range, suppress fission and fusion reactors, as well as a number of the more exotic Fenspace power generation systems, such as cosmic energy screens. However, these beams don't shut-down life support systems.

[KJ]

Fundamentally, personally, I don't really mind private ownership of things scaled up to "smallish warship" as long as it's not being used for piracy or what have you. I'll leave aside the meta side of things regarding how private individuals would build something with that much mass/volume, because even at water density that's something like 2 million metric tons. Anyway, this thread isn't really about private ownership so much as factional scale entities hammering out some sort of agreement as to what their monopoly of force should look like.

[HRogge]

Maybe GJ could have some "associated crafts" part... military or paramilitary ships of small factions that are not directly part of GJ, but come to training exercises from time to time and can be called in an emergency.

It gives the owners of the crafts the ability to train their crews and GJ/Space-Patrol a great way to get very good specs and signatures of the ships, which makes it more difficult to use them for criminal activities without being discovered.

[Ace Dreamer]

I'm pretty sure either the grumblings that lead to the Boskone War, or the war itself, persuaded Brains that it was actually worth the trouble of building the Mauler that he'd designed. This is a normally invisible space craft which is shaped like a cone on a sphere, where the height of the cone is the diameter of the sphere - 150m diameter, 300m long ('teardrop'?). He calls it the "Turtle".

This ship is conventionally unarmed, but has amazingly good, nested, force screens, and super heavy tractor-presser beams, along with tractor shears. There are also a number of beam weapons which can, at short range, suppress fission and fusion reactors, as well as a number of the more exotic Fenspace power generation systems, such as cosmic energy screens. However, these beams don't shut-down life support systems.

--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[classicdrogn]

I think the only thing thats really over the top about it is being invisible, though as the writer of one of the only even bigger ships in fenspace you might end up taking that with a bit of salt...

Say, how much has the Katamari Damacy accumulated, a decade on?
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Ace Dreamer]

I think the only thing thats really over the top about it is being invisible, though as the writer of one of the only even bigger ships in fenspace you might end up taking that with a bit of salt...

There might be another reason to have a ship this size, though given Brains supposed hatred of cos-play you might have trouble getting him to admit it...
It's big enough to cos-play the Galaxy Quest "NSEA Protector", or the original Star Trek "Enterprise", and change between them at the flick of a switch...
I did mention that most of the ships Brains builds go in for cos-play, didn't I? [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind