Re: [FT] Fleet design (Was Re: Alarishi Home Page)

At 08:00 AM 2/27/99 -0700, you wrote:
>[snip]
>>On a more serious note, we need to rein in "ubertech" that doesn't
come from
>>the Big Four. If they, with their trillions...hundred
billions....scores of
>>billions?  Where are we on the population thing?  Anyway, if the Big
Guys
>>haven't discovered it, it's probably not because their militaries are
old
>>and stodgy.  Consequently, it's unlikely that minor powers will have
much
>>new tech.

Bah, humbug!  The Illuminati has had this kind of tech for generations.
All they've done is scale it up a little.  Today, Black Helicopters,
tomorrow Black Dreadnoughts.  It's a simple and logical progression.

On a more serious note, it is entirely possible that smaller governments
are willing to take chances on research that the Big Guys would never
even
consider; well-developed bureacracies cause nearly as many problems as
they
solve.	The Alrishi Empire would be a likely candidate for developing
new
tech: they probably have plenty of zero-G research facilities, and they
seem to have a higher than normal collection of cranks and eccentrics.

That being said, people should be realistic about the capabilites of
their
creations (Hey, *I'm* being realistic!	The Illuminati are the ultimate
rulers of mankind!  They can do ANYthing! Anything, I say!  They
just...choose not to. They have a plan.)  The major powers are usually
going to have both economics and numbers on their side; your ships may
be
better than theirs, but they have more of them, and can build as many as
they have to.

John X Crimmins
johncrim@voicenet.com
  "...is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian.
They control information.  Don't ever piss one off."
  --Spider Robinson, The Callahan Touch.