(12-18-2019, 05:46 AM)Typrop Wrote: So, let me get this straight. Cardamine. Only grows on Malta. Demonstrably, only grown on Malta. Grown elsewhere. Stabiline, highly controlled and regulated, and still ridiculously expensive. "Small yet sustainable," yet clearly enough to crew huge capital ships. Excuse me if I'm at least a bit incredulous towards the entire concept.
Cardamine has been grown on bodies outside of Malta for some time now. This much is legitimately in the canon. Planet Soledad's infocard notes a small 'Malta-like band' on the equator that can grow Cardamine. (You ninja edited that, so yea) Beyond that, 'growing their own' was generally meant to insinuate that it's in the works. That's on me for not clarifying. My bad.
As for Stabiline, I'm not entirely sure what the going market price for it is, though I will note that the *MR| does get its supply through surplus means through Crayter. I've noted earlier, about a couple months ago, that the faction at the current stage does pretty much rely on the CR for most of its imports, which to an extent to include Stabiline and Cardamine for their own people.
Regarding warships, most of them I'd say are rather small. A Sarissa, a few destroyers and a gunship are hardly what I'd consider labor intensive, especially considering the amount of automation that's commonplace in the Freelancer universe. Add into that the fact that the Republic isn't entirely 100% native Maltesians, and the numbers become considerably more believable imo. The people manning the ships for the most part are, but those groundside are mostly non-natives working either by connection, desire or out of necessity.
If one reads the infocard of Galicia Research Station in Beta, the stance of the devs and the mod on Cardamine growing "elsewhere" becomes pretty much self-evident. Cardamine grows only on Malta and on a small portion of Soledad. Period.
Stabiline cannot support a big population for a number of reasons, some of which have already been pointed out:
expensive
difficult supply to Taus from Liberty (while Cryer might be interested to some extent in it for research purposes, the risks outweigh the benefits, IMHO)
in addition to the previous point, there are no other credible suppliers of Stabiline except for Cryer. Even if, say, CR lays hands on Stabiline (somehow) to cater for its own addicted population, most of it will be spent on its population by logic, not on some "for some reason friendly Outcasts".
As for "defectors" - there was a reason we had a strong grudge with MOA in its time. There are but a few reasons for a Maltese captain, quite high in hierarchy, to defect. Unless he runs for his life from some rival Maltese, there are basically no reasons to defect. Malta is a society of abundance - Maltese are rich, enjoy enormous profits from selling Cardi on which they possess a monopoly, tons of cash to spend on imports from all across Sirius (which can be delivered, ofc), have slaves for different kinds of fun, and live long and healthy lives. Besides, aside from defecting captain the crew must defect too. Otherwise, the crew can take over the ship and lynch the captain for treason. I can hardly imagine a ship of a rich albeit controversial country (say, Saudi Arabia where kids get quite some cash just for being born a citizen) would defect to an opponent, considered home absolute evil, and of different ideology. Just imagine Saudi navy ship defecting to, say, Israel. Or even Iran. Or South Korean ship defecting to North Korea. Even if the captain is an ideological zealot, the whole crew is unlikely to follow him.
So recent battlecruisers joining you? Unlikely. It would mean that from inRP few BCR recently released at least one already decided to defect which, given the sheer number of those BCR, would be a headline for all Malta that would take appropriate measures most likely. It would also imply that such defections are routine business and happen often (and they don't).
As for the ship size - it might be not big indeed but it is expensive to maintain. InRP Malta same as Crete have 7-9 caps each. We are talking about quasi- (or rogue- if you like) states with half-billion population as opposed to MR renegades whose population is at maximum 50-70k, have no industrial complex or shipyards, or strong economy to support a big fleet. Existing from the beginning ships - fine, that falls in line with the story. New ones? Hardly doubt so.
Overall, IMHO, while politics on Malta can be RPed in any way, a revolutionary faction makes little sense due to the main problem of dependence on Cardamine. Corsairs' revolutionaries make more sense - they are not bound by Cardi to one place, they have overpopulation and starvation, human life is worth nothing and many people can be expected under such circumstances to search better life elsewhere (like European colonists in 16-17th centuries) or have nothing to lose, hence quite reactionary and radical (like during Russian October Revolution of 1917). OC on the contrary are homogenous, wealthy, relatively safe society dependent on their place of origin and on trade with their exclusive commodity. Stability is everything for them because instability is bad for trade, hence, for all Malta.
Just some thoughts - given the recent RCR provisions it becomes much harder to divert a vanilla faction to the course one would wish to.
