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Originally posted by VoinianAmbassador:
Sloppy, you're considering the strength of the Voinians AFTER you have intervened. If a certain well-known mercenary captain had refused to rescue or retrieve a certain Voinian defector, etc. the situation would be very different.
Bah, he would have gotten outta Pax anyway. He could have hid in some trader's
Crassworms cargo, there's ships coming and going from Pax all the time, and
traders run those slow-paced Voinian's blockades all the time without much
trouble (ask any F.E. pilot) when there's enough profit to be made. Once on
Omm, the defector could have gotten to UE space pretty easily through a variety
of means.
That rescue was a trivial mission. McPhereson just used it to test a new
recruit.
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If there had been nobody to photograph the prototype Voinian dreadnought... if instead the person who might have performed this mission was busy wiping out the Emalgha...
Ok, I'll grant you, that was a daring mission deep in Voinian territory, where
it wouldn't have happened without a hero. Point taken, sir.
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they never rescued Anna Balshova or her cruiser plans
UE wouldn't have the cruiser plans, but human renegades would have, and
I am confident that those individuals, acting in self-interest, would have
most likely sold the plans to UE for a tidy profit (don't underestimate human
greed; it is one of our saving graces ;-). Or, alternative, those renegades,
using their mighty cruiser, might have overthrown UE, thereby inheriting the
UE-Voinian war. Either way: technology just doesn't die. Once the cruiser was
designed, someone was going to have it. I didn't see any of your agents
out chasing after the plans.
You know what the problem is with the Voinians? Slave labor. Back in the 20th
Century on Earth, we used to have this thing called Communism, where people
were treated poorly and had no incentive to work hard. The nations that
practiced this economic systems eventually collapsed into ruin, especially
when they got into a war-materials-production contest with the free nations
in the 1980s. That's what's happenings to the Voinians right now. Your slaves
will never match the production of New Taranto ship builders and Earth weapons
manufacturers!
And you've got people working for you who are just waiting for the
humans or Emalghans to distract you for a moment so they can revolt, and even
while you still have them under your thumb, you can bet they're lollygagging
and sabotaging the overall efficiency of your industries. The longer the war
goes on, the greater UE's advantage.
(That gives me a plot idea: there should be some Voinian missions for putting
down rebellions.)
20 years from now, after the war and the collapse of the Voinian economy, UE's
biggest concerns will be:
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What to do about all the Voinian immigrants pouring into UE space, looking
for jobs. I guess we'll let them work in the fields on Centauri and Saalia.
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How to collect taxes from Stellar Corp, after SC buys up half of Voina at
depressed firesale prices and moves their corporate H.Q. there.
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Have a Sloppy day!
