[GZG] FTverse colinies
From: Тимофей Потапенко <potapenkoteo@m...>
Date: Fri, 02 May 2008 12:15:26 +0400
Subject: [GZG] FTverse colinies
The FT-universe colonies
I'd like to start this kind of topic: Who has got any ideas about the
population and economic power
of human colonies at the other stars in FT-universe? And what about
strength of their navies?
Here is my impression.
FTL flights started in Tuffley-verse in the year 2069. In 2165 (roughly
after a hundreed years of
expansion) nations had enough fleets to start a full scale war, where
hundreeds of ships took part.
So, the question is: How really big were those colonies?
I made this kind of estimation: in assumption that the cost and
technical possibility of moving
people among stars are about the same as they were in 1880-1890s of
moving people from Europe
to America, we can conclude, that it was possible to move about 40000
colonists in a year from the
Solar system to a distant star. Than, if we consider that in best
circumstanses (best climate,
social care, enough living space etc) the "natural" population growth
would be 6% a year, we can say
that the "ideal" colony would have about 20 mln population after a
century of fastest development.
NAC's capital world Albion was founded in 2099, so, it's population
can't be bigger than 8-10 million.
Now, New Israel started their state in 2096, and they have only three
systems. To the moment of
2194 the oldest of their worlds had only a hundreed years history, so,
it cuoldn't have more than
20 million population. Let's add 10 million for each of the other main
systems and, say, 3 million
more for "numerous outposts". It makes 43 million population in general
at most. Than, let's take
there navy. They have 25 cruisers, 7 battleships, 3 superdreadnoughts, 1
carrier. Plus some amount
smaller fighting ships. But numbers of those "escorts" couldn't be
bigger, than in IJN Navy (about
5 star systems, territories on Earth, 44 Scouts, 25 Strikeboats, 22
Corvettes, 63 frigates, 32 destroyers,
44 cruisers, 5 battlecruisers, 4 battleships, 6 dreadnoughts, 28
carriers).
And it's hard to me to understand how could New Israel Navy (supported
with 43 million population)
be compared with, say ESU navy, supported with at least 2,000 million
population and this
type of industrial power.
But, until now we talked mostly about big powers. But what about little
state, consisted with only
one star system, with not an ideal climate, populated, say, 50-40 years
before, and the colonisation
hadn't had a powerfull sponsor who could move dozens of thousand
colonists. I suppose the
population of such an independent colony would be, somehow 1-3 million.
But if they have enough
industry, technologies and infrastructure, they can afford a small navy.
How big can it be?
My idea is like that. In the late 17th century Sweden was a very
industrial developed country.
And it was a European great power, so it had to spend much resourses for
the navy. But it
had only one million population, so, we can use Sweden as a model for an
industrial developed
but low populated colony.
Well, Swedish navy of that time consisted of 29-30 fighting ships. Among
them there were:
2 battleships, 7-8 frigates (at that time frigate-class was an analog of
cruiser-class in Tuffley
verse), 20 others.
So, that's my impression of the smaller power navy: 1-2 "First Class"
ships: battlecruisers
or battleships, or one "white elefant"-dreadnought; 5-10 cruisers of all
types; up to 8 destroyers;
up to 20 lighter classes scouts, strikeboats, corvettes, frigates.
Non-FTL in-system ships
are also included into this amount.
I think "first classes" should be ships of big power design, bought at
"secondary market",
the same should be most of the cruisers (but some could be "lokally
build"), and about one
half of escorts.
Any ideas?
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