Re: [FT and (!!) SG & DS] Population and military

Laserlight wrote:

> 2. where you are--a balkanized planet will have a lot more
footsloggers
> than, say, the Alarishi Empire, which has exactly one "brigade" plus
lots of
> marines.

Depends a lot on what your military challenge is--invading the Alarishi
Empire would be 100% naval actions and (effectively) boarding actions in
0g against relatively small planets.  Hence it makes sense to have naval
vessels, small security forces scattered among the planetoids, and
marine forces for counter-attacking any captured habitats.  Right?

Invading the New Roman Empire (to pick an example utterly at random) is
more complex exercise, assuming you want the real estate for more than
slag.  You gotta knock out the fleet, then we have colonized asteroid
belts (no Alarishi habitats in the Aegean Pelagos, thank you. ;),
colonized moons, and inhabited planets.  Thus we need fleets, marines,
interface fighters, atmospheric fighters, planetary defenses, and ground
troops out the yin-yang.  The idea being that while you're fighting the
thematic troops, militia, etc., the Tagmatic Kataphracts are coming. 
We've got the strategic depth--a one-planet colony might not, and decide
to go for the all-or-nothing strategy of nothing but ships.

John M. Atkinson