First of all, thanks for your post and explanation. The parts that seemed convincing enough are not commented below. But there are still some doubts to be resolved (yes, it can wait untill the release :)).
' Wrote:Where, pray tell, did you get the idea that Gallia was using its agents to weaken the houses? The recent wars were all caused by the usual suspects, Gallia had planned to sit in isolation for awhile longer. They've been watching quietly, not actively meddling.
From Clyde's post:(...) The news in Sirius told you that the Junkers where GRN spies. The rumours in Sirius told you that the wars between the Houses where engineered by the Junkers.
(Yeah, I know it was just his hyphothesis, nothing official.)
' Wrote:It's not as nonsensical as you think, when you dig into it.
France had its fleet destroyed at the beginning of Starlancer. However, they had a fleet beforehand, and that means they needed substantial infrastructure- particularly shipbuilding infrastructure. Their agents figure out that the rest of the Alliance is building sleeper ships, but they aren't getting one- so rather than try to rebuild their fleet, they put their vast resources toward building their own sleeper ship. They wait for the Alliance to set off, then leave for someplace else. While the Alliance went for Sirius, large enough for five nations, France didn't need that much space- so they went for the place big enough for two.
Generally speaking, you are right. But that story has weak spots, making it less plausible.
Every active infrastructure requires supply/maintaining and generates some kind of activity around it. Which is hard to pass unnoticed. Espcecially is it's sized to build a giant sleeper ship. Moreover, is the Coalition managed to to not only find out about but also infiltrate the sleeper ships (AFAIR it was them who sabotaged the Spanish ship), how come that the Alliance did not even notice the whole construction of French ship? Well, the Coalition didn't noticed it too, since they would have destroyed it (France had no fleet to defend it, right?). That level of successfull top-secretness seems to be hard to believe in.
(I admit being biased. I loved Starlancer so every deviation from it's storyline is a heresy punishable by instant nitpicking ;-))
' Wrote:Having double the resources of any of the other houses, an efficient (if not particularly "nice") government, and no competition requiring defenses or other such resource drains, Gallia could build quite quickly.
With no competition there is no progress, especially with no competition (or rather fighting) here and now (think of pre-Columbian South America). And a lot of resorces usually leads to wasting them (think of gas mileage of an average car vs gas prices changes).
On the other hand, since the Gallia is a monarchy, they could employ serious long-term planning.
' Wrote:If the Rheinland Empire was able to go from nothing (remember, the Alliance didn't take any warships with them) to a massive navy within 500 years with less resources than Gallia (and a similar government)- so massive, in fact, that it took eighty years to whittle it down to what would be considered "normal"- imagine the same but with less obstructions and more resources.
Now there is even something less plausible (both in cases of Rheinland and Gallia). Navy, - or generally speaking any army - can't be just accumulated over time. Just having a ship operational and crew trained cost a lot. Both money and resources. So if the Gallia have fleet larger than other Houses combined, it means they have larger industry, more resources and bigger population than all of the Houses combined. Just for the purpose of maintaining it.
' Wrote:Through the Junkers, Gallia could keep pace with any tech advances made in Sirius that were so crucial as to be universal, reverse-engineer simpler devices, and of course do their own tech.
And this is the part requiring suspension of disbelief most: the isolation not working both ways. During hundreds of years Gallia was able to gather vital intell about the Houses - more than enough to keep their engineering evolving. But the Houses did not even had a clue about existance of the Gallia. A lot of people found this unbelivable (yeah, I've read almost whole topic). I guess most of them hope to find at least unexpected _and_ brilliant explication behind this. (I mean, sth more than "oh, Gallia knew about the other Houses from the beginning so it was easy for them" or - Cthulhu forbid - "Gallia had better counter-intelligence"). Explaining it is a challenge.
And finding the explanation(s) could be extremely rewarding for players, if only what they find is not Applied Phlebotinum, which is what we fear of.
