Sanev.Khan posted:

We could wait for our next batch of geological survey ships (so that we don't have the two we sent come back, which might be suspicious), use FESTER to spot the transmission and redirect one of the new geological survey ship as appropriate.


By game mechanics, we could build orbital weapon platforms armed with nothing but a meson turret, a small sensor and a beam fire control, I think it could be small enough to be made by fighter factories. They'd be capable of shooting incoming missiles from off Earth. And I specifically say "meson" because it can shoot through atmosphere like it's not there, while other weapons lose damage the closer the atmosphere is to 1 atm, IIRC?


Somehow I don't think the other powers would let go of their only possible defence against us, when we're technically already capable of bombarding them from orbit by tossing rocks out our freighter.

I ride bikes all day posted:

Any TN ship in orbit with PD should be able to obliterate just about any sort of conventional ICBM launch. The flight time of any ICBM is measured in minutes, and for a TN ship the travel time to any point in near-Earth orbit is seconds.

Our new sensors are capable of detecting minerals well below the surface of the planet. While the cores of nuclear weapons are shielded, they were never designed to shield against this new generation of sensors. Is there any reason we can't map out the location of every nuclear weapon on the planet?

Veloxyll posted:

Our Shipwrights have finally completed the hull layout for a colonial transport vessel

code:

Tongarra class Passenger Cruiser      19,878 tons       143 Crew       682.1 BP       TCS 398    TH 375    EM 0
943 km/s      Armour 1-65       Shields 0-0       HTK 46      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 421    Max Repair 100 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 40,000    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2    
Axbearer    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    

Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP62.5 (6)    Power 375.0    Fuel Use 10.06%    Signature 62.5    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 18 billion km (220 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

2 shuttles, 6 engines, 4 fuel tanks, 4 cryobays, and a maintenance storage bay with the tools to repair any damage to the cryomodules

It is not considered viable to make a passenger liner at this time. Even 1000 passengers requires a 10,000 ton spaceframe

idhrendur posted:

ooc: How do scientists improve in this game? However it happens, someone needs to propose that process happening for me. That bonus is atrocious and I'd like to be useful.

Servetus posted:

According to conversations in the other thread boarding is in the game. We would have to build a fleet around very close engagements.

Asterite34 posted:

So far the only alien samples we have are Roswell Specimens E-H, which have a... distressing biological similarity to humans, at least in terms of anatomy. No hemoglobin, but that's not too unusual in the mundane terrestrial animal kingdom, lizards have green blood. Also the fact the Face facility seems to have an atmosphere and temp range amenable to humans might mean it's there for the abductee's benefit, OR it means the "Martians" naturally prefer a similar environment to us and it just happens to be tolerable to the human squatters as well. Unless their underlying biochemistry is utterly novel and their similarities to earth life are wholy superficial, cross-species pathogen transfer seems like a possibility. The Proton being as heavily decontaminated and quarantined as is being suggested seems excessive, but we must admit a reverse War of the Worlds scenario is possible. Hence keeping the abductees on Mars until they get a thorough examination.

sebmojo posted:

shudders Peter Wattsly

Antilles posted:

Well, better safe than sorry I say, and I find it unlikely we'll suddenly urgently need Proton-B while it's undergoing quarantine. Hell, I'd say it's more likely they'll trigger some kind of defense system by landing near to or walking into the alien ruins, but that possibility won't stop us from making the attempt if the abductees end up running out of food before we can get them out of there.

Mister Bates posted:

ThatBasqueGuy posted:

Props to the absolute madlads that manged to reverse engineer a space suit with a knowledge base stopping around the turn of the century, class acts all around

NewMars posted:

Someone's pointed out: they sent a war criminal of an emperor to negotiate with us. How's about putting the imperial family on trial for all those gas attack warrants they signed?

Obviously they will refuse. But you have to have some things that will never be agreed to as leverage.

PurpleXVI posted:

I mean, if they consider it "humiliating capitulation" to accept basic human rights(food, shelter, education, freedom of association, religion, organization, etc.) for all citizens and to de-colonize minority populations, then are they really a government we can strike a good faith deal with?

punched my v-card at camp posted:

Speaking for myself, the hawkish wing doesn't take the threat of nuclear war lightly. Nor do we gleefully anticipate confrontation. But even if we took Japan's initial proposal without a single concession or counteroffer, we'd only be buying time. As others have pointed out, even if we gift them some ships, our head start into the stars and the sheer demographic/geographic imbalance between our multi-continental bloc and a single nation means it is only a matter of time before we're once again in a position of potential hegemony and they'll start making threats again. They want to be our equals, but to reiterate--if they put their entire population and economy into research labs, they couldn't support our current level of R&D investments.

If we want to take this deal, we should go into with open eyes and have a contingency for the next crisis--and a plan or a SCYTHE to eventually resolve our fundamental disagreements.

punched my v-card at camp posted:

True--your reaction may depend on how much you're willing to tolerate an oppositional Japan in general.

One area our delegation is waffling about though is that of colonization. Is there really actually a substantial risk of Japan, or any other power, creating some sort of neo-colonial empire of the stars? Especially if we can stand develop a shared convention on off-world migration to ban indentured servitude and other exploitative labor practices.

Shogeton posted:

Actually, that raises another concern. If Japan goes into space, or even co-colonizes with us, that is a route for Gladio to hit us in vulnerable places. Even if we assume the Imperial government would refuse to work together with them, we must assume that plenty of people working in their regime would have sympathies there, and assist them. No, inviting imperialists into space carries far too many risks.

Antilles posted:

We have a policy that does most of this already, it could be expanded and Japan made to adapt it as part of the deal.

Zurai posted:

I think the question is more "can we prevent other people from reaching space without being fascist about it," and the answer is "no". Japan is already going to be a spacefaring entity. That's a done deal. They have a contract with Hawaii for a ship. The only way to stop that is to destroy (physically or economically) Japan or Hawaii or both.

Crazycryodude posted:

The Japanese are considering buying a ship from the Hawaiians, depending on how these negotiations go. If we really wanted to be dicks about it, we would have no trouble forcing the Hawaiians not to take any contracts with the Japanese. Pay Hawaii an obscene price they can't refuse (and Japan can't afford to beat) to do whatever bullshit makework for us and keep their slips occupied or hell just say "you've got to choose between Japan (no space presence and an economy a tenth the size of ours) or us (your main and only customer who could ruin your business in a microsecond)." Ideally we can avoid that because it would be a massive dick move, but we're holding most of the cards here.

Rubix Squid posted:

I doubt Japan would honestly let them. OOC it wasn't until 1997 that Japan recognized them as an ethnic minority. 2008 that the Japanese government formally recognized them as an indigenous group. I'm not as familiar with the situation of the Ryukuans.

Asterite34 posted:

OOC what actually is the mechanical downside of multiple empires having colonies on the same body? Do we just risk them sucking up the TNEs faster than we can? Or can they actually launch a ground assault directly from their base to ours?

BwenGun posted:

Yeah, this is one of my big concerns. Say we have a planet designated as a naval base, with fuel, missiles, maintenance facilities etc. vital for the easy operation of a fleet. But another nation sets up a colony on the same planet and prior to war manages to get a large military force with significant surface to orbit weapon platforms. At that point you have no choice to commit to a large ground troop offensive to knock them out. During which time the fleet is effectively screwed for resupply.

Asterite34 posted:

Okay, so it turns out it is kind of a nightmare to have a hostile colony share a planet with you, as they can turn the place into an unassailable fortress with ease and that kinda fucks you if you need access to it.

...but on the other hand, an anti-capitalist worker's uprising even modestly armed with STO weapons can tie up an entire planet and would require an enormous costly drawn-out unpopular-back-home investment to dislodge. Sounds like a nightmare to, say, a colonialist empire trying to force compliance.

BwenGun posted:

Its one of the things I'd most like tweaked with Aurora atm. STO weapons are really cool, and thematically make sense but because the game doesn't track the horizon on planets or deal with combat in a positional way they're far too powerful and easy to abuse. Even adding a minimum number of STOs needed for low orbit control (based on the size of the body) would help balance it out a fair amount. As that way you could do limited orbital bombardment to reduce a garrisons STO numbers enough to attempt ground force landings and resupply.


That would be up to Mr Bates as whilst smuggling AKs to our oppressed brethren is fairly easy, motorised high energy laser platforms are a bit harder to hide in amongst a shipment of nutrient bars!

VideoWitch posted:

I'm opposed to the idea of using Comintern troops to suppress communist militants, but if it's at all possible for us to get them to stand down or agree to a cease fire diplomatically then we should absolutely go for it.

Mister Bates posted:

There are a couple regionalist separatist groups fighting alongside them but the Naxalites are generally Maoists or Maoist-adjacent groups who are waging a protracted people's war with the end goal being the establishment of a unified Indian socialist state. 'We want control of the government' is exactly the demand.

Their relationship with the parliamentary communist parties varies from open hostility to fairly friendly depending on which parliamentary party and which Naxalite faction you're talking about.

They have been fighting since before the GRW, and received aid from Comintern-aligned powers (although the Comintern has not officially intervened in India they have in fact continued to receive some quiet aid from individual member states).