Guard Systems

[carlabrams]

To those who keep bringing up the analogy of guard systems to guarded fortresses or military bases or whatnot, I give you this: a star system is really quite a large thing to be called a fortress. It would be like cordoning off the entire state of Nevada because there happens to be a military base there. An individual base, sure, you can make the point that it should restrict access to all unauthorized personnel (and it does, by not allowing enemies to dock), but a whole system - I think that's stretching the analogy too far.

You would have a good point with this regarding the state/fort thing except for one teensy, tiny, minor detail...

A state, whether it's Nevada or Rhode Island - has massively multiple access points. For that matter, you can DRIVE across the border in a 4WD vehicle.

Now, think of the community of Tiburon, California. It's on an island - so unless you come in by boat, there's one bridge in, and one bridge out. A star system is like that. There are limited access points. Most of the Guard systems have 2 or 3 jump holes, and that's it.

So you're an explorer, you find a new Jump Hole. It just so happens that the people you're working for are looking for a place to conduct experiments and such. And despite the fact that most of us would go into space if we had the chance, we're the exception, not the norm. Most of the sheeples on this ball of dirt wouldn't go anywhere. You'll still run into that in the future.

Net result - LN/BAF/BHG/XA/etc... decides to limit the access to the system they found. Only allow their own people in, and start building their defenses.

Remember, it's been said that our player units and fleets don't represent all of the capabilities of the systems. So throw in another 5,000 mad scientists, and you'll see that it's easy to have a Guard System, with impenetrable (or nearly so, thanks to game mechanics) defenses.

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Sentient Machine Alliance