From: nuny@bid.nes   
      
   On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 1:43:31 PM UTC-8, MrAnderson wrote:   
   > Mr Fergerson, I am waiting for your detailed analysis :p   
      
     Oh, sorry, I thought you were doing fine.   
      
     Well, except for one thing. If Arda controls all the antimatter-fueled tugs   
   and weapons manufacturing, and can bombard anyone from orbit they choose, how   
   do the other worlds manage to arm themselves or build the infrastructure to   
   get started on Bussard-   
    or sail-driven ships to even have ground or space battles?   
      
     Plus, how do the poor peasants/miners/factory workers even know that Bussard   
   ships or rifles are possible? Where did they get the education and   
   information? Surely the Ardans were smart enough to keep such things as State   
   Secrets.   
      
     Seems to me Arda would have, at some early stage, farmed out manufacturing   
   ship and weapons components to other worlds and brought the finished parts   
   home, then done final assembly in orbital facilities in its own system. That   
   way Arda doesn't have to    
   overbuild industrial capacity and pollute itself too much. Instead, it keeps   
   secret the knowledge of how to actually assemble and fire up antimatter   
   reactors, and do the final machining of gun parts.   
      
     Arda would be the administrative center, more or less a manicured parkland   
   and playground for the elite with wild spaces left more or less pristine while   
   the other worlds are basically all farms, mines and factory complexes. The   
   other worlds would get    
   only the information the Ardans decided they needed, controlled by shipping   
   inhabitants of those worlds to technical schools on Arda, then sending them   
   back to man the farms, mines, and factories. So Arda would have mines and   
   farms and such, but small "   
   toy" ones just for the students to learn on, not big enough to supply any of   
   Arda's needs.   
      
     That way, when the peasants/wage slaves revolt, they have bits of high-tech   
   knowledge they can pool and the occasional quiet genius to think up Bussards   
   and so on, plus they have the means of production in hand to make something to   
   fight their    
   oppressors *with* and control the food supply the Ardans need.   
      
     Arda would naturally install local Governors and overseers on other worlds,   
   but men can be corrupted or distracted from the locals' efforts to convert   
   mining equipment to weapons frinst until it's too late. That's especially   
   easier if the Governors and    
   administrators are paper shufflers with no tech expertise of their own.   
      
     Food would probably be the first shot fired the Ardans notice. A tug arrives   
   at Farmworld III orbit and and a shuttle comes up and attaches a container   
   that would usually be filled with grain, but when the Ardan inspector opens   
   it, armed peasants    
   emerge and take over the tug, then force the pilot to take it to another rebel   
   world to load up with soldiers and assault tools to take back to Arda so they   
   can blow up something important. What would they blow up? I dunno, previous   
   classes of students    
   would have had to gather intelligence about orbital assembly and antimatter   
   plants or something. Meanwhile a few hundred tons of grain didn't arrive at   
   Arda on time so they dispatched a Patrol ship to Farmworld III to see what the   
   issue was, and that's    
   when the shooting starts- the farmers would have colluded with the miners to   
   arm themselves to try to take the Patrol ship.   
      
     Okay, two things.   
      
     The commo delay I mention in the scenario above brings up something else I   
   completely forgot to ask about- does your universe have faster-than-light   
   commo? If so, you'll have slow fleets but fast wars (battle fleets loitering   
   for long periods inside    
   potentially troublesome star systems that can be ordered into action quickly   
   but can't get from system to system quickly). If not, communication moves at   
   the speed of the fastest courier ship type, basically a one-man stripped-down   
   tug, and fleets follow    
   behind.   
      
      
     Mark L. Fergerson   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)