Solomani Confederation (Military)

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Solomani Confederation: Strategic Stance and Doctrine

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1. There is some form of rigidity involved in setting up distinctly regional subsector fleets, though having a Solomani Rim Sector fleet in the last edition did boost numbers, and in interstellar polities, gigantic resource pools are relative.

2. The Confederation has no strategic depth, which would be a requirement for strategically defensive.

3. Who the hell came up with Iron Gate? The only obvious candidate is Mirabilis, and that's because it's the obvious staging ground for the primary push to Terra; outside the fact it's probably easy to bypass them.

4. The only excuse you'd have is establishing a line of communications between the border and Home, to protect the political centre from an Imperium pre emptive strike, and the supply line to the fleets liberating the Sphere.

5. That's a losing military strategy. This isn't the internet, globalization, and instant communications, I suspect cultural imperialism is a lot more difficult to disseminate.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Solomani Security

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1. Depends as to whether you consider the occupied territories inherent to the Confederation.

2. Occasional red herrings and sacrificial lambs. Industrial espionage is a given, depends on who the beneficiaries are.

3. StikStok.

4. Divide and conquer.

5. Interesting how high up the Confederation Navy would tolerate Solomani Security plants.

6. Competition that strengthens existing intuitions, that doesn't endanger their fundamental foundations.

7. It's a balancing act, encouraging external investment, subverting foreign technical expertise, soft powering influencers, without demonstrating arrogance.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Solomani Confederation Navy

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1. You have to see actual orders of battle, from either side.

2. To resolve that, you're going to have to compromise, really aggressive across border reconnaissance, and while a subsector's worth buffer zone seems the safe option, you deploy heavily reinforced Fleet Squadrons two jumps behind the border, networked with jump factor five fleet couriers.

3. From the previous edition, it seems very clear what the modern Fleet Squadron is composed of.

4. Each sector fleet is likely to have one or two battle fleets that can be activated upon declaration of war, or to intercept an incoming massive invasion force, while the rest are distributed mostly to support peace keeping missions, eyes and ears, and act as a trip wire.

5. Flotilla, contra admiral?

6. Or not. I'm pretty sure that task forces are closer to fleet size, and would supercede flotillas. I have vice admirals at three stars, and would probably cap their area of responsibility at fourish adjacent subsectors, and concentrate them to actual battle fleets; you could probably saddle rear admirals for specific purpose ships in the administrative formation.

7. I think more likely is that formation identifiers may or may be retained, depending on circumstances, or minor or major transfers of ships and/or formations, or reassigned missions.

8. Bluffing?

9. Assigned capital ships and carriers, for presumably peacekeeping duties. You have to make the assumption that monitors are considered expendable.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Solomani Confederation Navy

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10. Vantage is the headquarters of the Solomani Rim Strategic Fleet Reserve. Check.

11. I see nothing objectionable with having the strategic fleet reserve in Vantage; I suspect part of the reason was to exert political pressure from Home.

12. Admiral Terra Delacroix; almost poetic.

13. In Alpha Crucis, the Strategic Fleet Reserve is based out of the Vald Naval Complex, a cluster of four naval bases in the Teta Lise, Pesacce, Rilo and Totu systems. Fleet headquarters is at Pesacce, which is home to most of the battleships, fleet carriers and logistics vessels as well as troop ships and assault vessels. Pesacce also has a huge military base and training facilities for planetary assault formations. Sufficient escort vessels are also housed at Pesacce that an intervention fleet can be formed without bringing in ships from other bases.

14. Admiral David Kent - Beatty?

15. Maybe.

16. The naval base at Teta Lise is variously known as ‘battlecruiser country’ or ‘destroyer central’; it is the home port of much of the sector’s strike forces. The majority of destroyers based there are strike rather than fleet types, optimized for the rapid delivery of heavy firepower rather than a more general ‘fleet’ role. Rilo plays host to the battle tender force and its riders, both combat and logistics. In any major conflict these forces would be moved to bolster the defences of threatened systems, possibly in several waves as tenders returned to pick up another group of riders. The Totu naval base has a wider range of vessels than other Fleet Reserve bases. These include battleships and cruisers as well as most of the fleet destroyer complement. Check.

17. In addition to the Fleet Reserve, Alpha Crucis has several smaller fleets-in-being. The Orichalc Border Fleet is quite strong, with an allocation of battleships and battle tenders to permit it to resist an initial strike in some force. The Alpha Crucis Central Fleet acts as a rapid reaction reserve for the whole sector, receiving ships from the strategic reserve on a rotating basis. The Central Fleet can put together task forces capable of dealing with most problems but has only a few capital ships – it is a fly swatter to the strategic reserve’s hammer. The concept of fleet in being is to preserve the effective fighting strength and potential threat, by avoiding major confrontations, or ones that potentially can go either way.

18. The Dagir Border Fleet, in contrast to the Orichalc fleet, has been pared down to the bone in recent years. A small force of overworked fleet destroyers is all that is available to show the flag and deal with incidents too serious for the patrol vessels assigned to the region. Repeated requests for additional ships have produced only platitudes or promises to look into the possibility of assigning some more capable forces. Check.

19. The rest of the sector has small forces assigned to its naval bases as local reserves but these are greatly outnumbered by patrol vessels assigned to regional commands. Typically a patrol flotilla has responsibility for an area smaller than a subsector; either a large cluster of worlds or multiple smaller groupings. Patrol forces are part of the Alpha Crucis Fleet and sometimes co-opted into ‘fleet’ roles but are not well suited to combat against a ‘straight’ combatant vessel of similar size. Unless these local forces are guardships, or just plain monitors, this practice may be faulty.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Confederation Warship Deployments

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1. If the idea is sloops of war making up the numbers due to treaty or budgetary constraints, or even diplomatic ones, sure.

2. It's always been a little vague as to the extent that Solomani Security operate starwarships overtly, and if the crew is seconded from the Confederation Navy. 'Security and reassurance’ patrols, probably their own.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Solomani Confederation Army and Marines

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1. Colocation makes sense, since it probably is faster easier to directly load troops and equipment on Confederation Navy vessels, and unload them, and they appear to have very large garrisons, which probably provides extensive external security, with a secure spaceport, but spaceport security itself would be the responsibility of the Navy.

2. Small naval base seems something they'd site dirtside. Ground forces would be assigned on temporary basis to hotspots.

3. The strategy sucks to begin with, so I presume it means that the Army is expected to put up stiff resistance around planetary objects that an invading force would consider that they need to control.

4. Morale boosters; not surprised that the Army would have extensive gravitionally motivated assets. What brings to mind is who's controlling the deep meson sites?

 

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Solomani Confederation: Home Forces

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1. This seems new. Home Forces are planetary military forces in general, while Home Guard are trained and equipped to more or less Confederation forces standard. Going by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, probably two percent of Gross Planetary Product, though they are welcome to spend more. Exact composition of these forces are discretionary, as long as they can fulfill a core set of missions and roles. Strategic worlds can get subsidies, as well as Confederation forces on a perceived need basis.

2. Tactical control of interstellar capable naval assets may be a mixed blessing. Home Forces are expected to exert control over their planetary ground and orbital areas, insystem patrols considered a bonus.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Technological Level Fifteen

1. The Murat battle monitor class was constructed at technological level fifteen, so I got curious as to which worlds within the Confederation qualified.

2. Research indicates quite a number of Confederation worlds are supposedly a decade away from achieving this.

3. However, officially, there seem to be only two so far.

4. Trilion/Trilion/Spica - A8C899C-F, industrial.

5. Darsei/Aldebaran/Aldebaran - A765845-F, rich, garden.

6. Darsei might be more light industry, with maybe four hundred million population.

7. Trilion seems more likely, with three billion.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Confederation Culture

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1. Island ecology.

2. Heresy.

3. Creole?

4. Cultural Imperialism - seems more like megacorporation acculturalization.

5. Dolphins - Guild Navigator tanks?

6. Always comes down to what is used to pay your taxes.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Why Solomani Humans are the Best Humans

Tribalism.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Internal Communications

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1. So exactly what routes are still serviced by ecks boats, and who's doing the servicing (presumably the Confederation Navy)? Confederation Courier Service, presumably private subcontractors, which presumably have to dock at the system's starport in order to get refuelled for the next stage of their voyage.

2. Confederation government, but mostly private subcontractors or member government owned starships; with an occasional insert by Solomani Security. I'm not sure you can coordinate this, nor how it actually saves money, except at the expense of time.

3. Two parsecs per week average; reminds of the bus service.

4. This civilian courier network is paralleled by the Naval Communications Office, a specialist division of the Confederation Navy that provides high-jump couriers to the fleet and for official internal communications. Communications Office vessels typically carry a liaison officer and a team of bodyguards, delivering information directly to on-station naval commanders and world governments without transmitting it in any form. The ‘comms case’ carried by the liaison officer is typically expected to contain all manner of secret information but its data is mostly dull statistics and reports on mundane matters across the Confederation. Still, it is never possible to say for certain whether a courier’s arrival is business-as-usual or the delivery of orders to start a war.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Astrographic and Political Factors

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1. Super tribalism bound together by an overarching ideology and economic self interest. The Impies will not replace us!

2. Mergers and acquisitions. Anti trust.

3. Pilgham Economic Security Zone - hostile takeover. Members of the PESZ are required to contribute part of their Home Forces to protect the huge and under-used naval bases at Krypton and Jardin.

4. Jardin Cluster Systems - Cadia?

5. Transstar sector headquarters; purist faction leader. Explains reluctance to deploy fleet elements there.

6. Anschluss, if not hegemony.

7. Bootean Federation - I'm not going out of my way to look for umlauts on an American keyboard. Consensus.

8. Status quoers. Also, direct route to liberate Terra, or Imperium pre emptive strike towards Home.

9. Gemini Rift - which is where jump factor four comes in real handy, for rather dispersed rim system distribution. Actually, tankers are real easy to build, considering a major portion of a starship would be so disposed.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Astrographic and Political Factors

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10. Kukulcan Economic Zone - I see an estimate of forty billion souls; a little vague over why they are at odds with the Secretariat, and what conflicts of interests have materialized.

11. Some form of trade war - maybe they're dumping?

12. Thetis Laputa Coalition - Maybe one of them just lost a starwarship building contract to the other?

13. I don't think they're supposed to impose trade tariffs on member worlds, though the implication is Kukulcan issues with the Secretariat have spilled over to increased friction for trade passing through, which they want to reciprocate.

14. Verging on piracy sounds like finding excuses to confiscate cargoes, and the costs aren't borne equally.

15. The Orichalc Gateway - resource consolidation.

16. TransBorder Shipping/Transstar; pork barrel politics?

17. The Near Bootes Trade War - I presume this means Thetis and Laputa allowed Bootean merchantmen to bypass Kukulcan, though unless Kukulcan has undue influences over other system approaches, I'm not sure how that matters.

18. Kukulcan harassment made the cost of doing business for Bootean merchants too high in their subsector, leaving Thetis and Laputa to duke it out with Kukulcan successfully, but a series of setbacks made them turn on each other to the point of actual hostilities.

19. Implication seems that Laputa was ready to invade somewhere, were stopped by the Confederation Navy, but had a blue on blue incident over the terms of surrender.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Astrographic and Political Factors

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20. Consolidation of Turin - selfish buggers.

21. Central Alpha Crucis Cluster - lynchpin, both commercially and militarily.

22. Regulus Fleet Reserve Zone - The central cluster of the Regulus subsector is the ‘home territory’ of Confederation naval forces in Alpha Crucis. The Fleet Reserve is based here and conducts most of its exercises in this cluster. With extensive patrol operations constantly ongoing this makes the Central Regulus Cluster one of the most secure parts of the sector. Reaction forces stand ready to respond to any incursion, with smaller task forces frequently deployed to other parts of the sector as needed.

23. Yano?

 

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Solomani Confederation: Confederation Party Factions

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1.

2. Large tent.

3. Rim Hawks -

4. Rim purists -

5. Rising Phoenix -

6. Vega First -

 

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Solomani Confederation: Confederation Party Factions

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7. Eschatonic Accelerationists -

8. Rim Federalist -

9. Pure Federalist -

10. Solomani Solidarity -

11. Pan Earthers -

 

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Solomani Confederation: Confederation Party Factions

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12. The Brotherhood of Man -

13. Sirius Rising -

 

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Solomani Confederation: Smaller Corporations

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1. Or, all of the above.

2. Contech - eugenics; one variant is just purging Vilani genes.

3. Crown Lines - actual consolidation; security clampdown.

4. Ereshkigal AG - I guessed Babylonian, then Sumerian; I don't see any resolution until the Solomani Rim issue is.

5. Ewm Shao Gwi - economic ideologists?

6. Lamarvk Minarets LIC - Rio Tinto.

7. Macrogenesis - low cost genetic testing kits.

8. Solomani Party majority stake; I'm going to guess that customer genetic information isn't going to remain private.

9. Panstellar - high technology heavy industrial goods, electronics, starships, software, automation, robotics, atmospheric processing, terraforming equipment.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Smaller Corporations

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10. Saxe Transport - good relations with Imperium authorities.

11. Awake.

12. Security issues due to policy.

13. Seaharvester - specialized environment extraction; SuSAG subsidiary.

14. Solar Shipping - split into two entities; cooperation with successor Solomani Shipping.

15. Solomani Chemicals - SuSAG postbellum Confederation successor; close relationship with Ministry of Justice and Solomani Security.

16. Law of unintended consequences; chemical and biological warfare research.

17. Solomani Military Industries - as I recall, owned by the Confederation Navy.

18. Solomani Shipping - nee Solar Shipping.

19. Solomani Strategic Technologies - Confederation Army and Navy joint venture.

 

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Solomani Confederation: Smaller Corporations

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20. Star Core - fusion reactor systems manufacturer; subsidiary manufactures plasma weapon systems.

21. Thinking Machines Incorporated - leading manufacturer of robotics, artificial intelligence; Imperium licensee.

22. Naasirka covert subsidiary.

23. Huawei; maybe ZTE.

24. Headquarters Polyphemus.

25. Tsyasha Kwa - would have said Apple, but then they'd swallow GSbAG.

26. Utarek - either more efficient as a local corporation, or indirect connection.

27. Valkyrie Technologies - cutting corners; I was wondering how technological level twelve tank was acceptable to the Confederation Army.

28. It does sound similar to Boeing.

29. Consumer division is probably looking to expand, to balance off military sales.