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Subject: "BPGD: That Gun"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
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May-26-14, 10:33 PM (EDT)
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10. "RE: BPGD: That Gun"
In response to message #9
 
  
>I imagine that most newcomers to the galactic stage usually take a few
>years, if not decades, before they even begin to think about adopting
>some form of directed-energy weapon as standard issue. Earth at the
>time of First Contact certainly didn't have the industrial base to
>support DEW weapons, certainly not in the numbers necessary to arm the
>armed forces of any major nation. And it's traditionally been a bad
>idea to make your military's logistics dependent on the good graces of
>another nation who might come under pressure to stop filling your
>weapon orders.

It's been a bad idea, but lots of countries have done it anyway. Hell, in the context of UF, many interplanetary polities continue to do it; Corellia is not precisely what you'd call the friendliest neighbor there is and BlasTech seems to be in no danger of going out of business. Genom's MilArm and it's various subsidiaries such as BudgetArms probably do brisk sales as well.

Your logic makes sense for a planet with a unified planetary government that's both not under immediate extraplanetary threat and is at all interested in good governance. But for a planet still made up of warring nation-states, as Earth was at the time of First Contact?

Those guys are all gonna be looking for a leg up on each other. That's gonna mean, in addition to scaling up their infrastructure as fast as possible, they're going to be buying arms from off-world. And once one nation-state does it, many others will follow suit. Once the US Army inks a deal for a couple million E-11s (probably accompanied by a fat logistical support deal for maintaining same, just like they'd sign with Raytheon or Boeing) you bet your ass the Chinese and Russians are gonna look into similar options. Maybe they can only afford a quarter of a million DC-15s, but they supplement that with a billion rounds of BlasCaps to go in their existing weapons as a budget upgrade. (I know the BlasCap didn't exist then, it's just an example of how things could play out.) Maybe NATO cuts a deal with Salusia for high-tech slugthrowers, accompanied with an agreement to exclusively buy ammo from Salusia.

Now that I think of it, such chicanery is probably one of many indirect causes of the First Contact Wars, as everyone geared up and then a combination of toxic ideology and desire to play with the new toys combined explosively. I mean... you can't tell me the US Government didn't plow the chunk of change they got from the WDF for the US Air Force right back into fancy new upgrades. I bet SubPro sold the Navy a ton of hardware right after that.

-Merc
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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 BPGD: That Gun [View All] Gryphonadmin Apr-28-14 TOP
   RE: BPGD: That Gun Gryphonadmin Apr-28-14 1
   RE: BPGD: That Gun Delusionist May-23-14 2
      RE: BPGD: That Gun Gryphonadmin May-23-14 3
          RE: BPGD: That Gun CdrMike May-24-14 4
          RE: BPGD: That Gun Peter Eng May-24-14 5
              RE: BPGD: That Gun Gryphonadmin May-24-14 6
      RE: BPGD: That Gun Mercutio May-26-14 7
          RE: BPGD: That Gun Gryphonadmin May-26-14 8
              RE: BPGD: That Gun CdrMike May-26-14 9
                 RE: BPGD: That Gun Mercutio May-26-14 10
                      RE: BPGD: That Gun drakensis May-27-14 11
   RE: BPGD: That Gun BLUE Jun-21-14 12
   RE: BPGD: That Gun Peter Eng Jul-27-17 13


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