GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Browncoat Navy

POSTED BY: TALVIN
UPDATED: Friday, April 16, 2004 13:29
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Wednesday, April 14, 2004 4:13 PM

TALVIN


The Browncoats that we see and hear about are pretty much all groundpounders. We have yet to hear about a single (Space) Naval Battle during the Unification War. Of course, those of our heroes that served were in the MudSlogging Infantry, and so that is where we focus. Still, it's hard to believe that the entire war was fought on the ground.

A couple theories:

1) Joss just hadn't gotten that far yet. (See a hypothetical dialogue at the end of this post.)

2) Naval action between capital ships just really wasn't part of the war! A pretty good case can be made that this was the first ever Interstellar War (and only one so far), so alot of stuff had to be made up along the way. Ground and Air Combat tech would have been in goodly supply from Earth-that-Was, but such "navy" ships as existed were primarily Cutters and Corvettes for anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, etc. Colony Transports could be turned into Troop Transports very quickly, but Ships of the Line are another matter entirely. The Alliance Cruiser could well have come along at the end of the war, or even after. What we see of the "Cruiser" indicates that it is more of a mobile base than anything else; there to support ground troops, carry a wing of fighters, etc. It does NOT come across as a ship that thinks it will ever run into a hostile in its own class.

While I like theory 1, I tend to lean toward 2 based on available evidence. It also fits with the Civil War inspiration: a few exciting tussles at sea, but mostly "brown-water" navy and lots of ground fighting. The Navy was there to blockade.

But consider:

Mal: "Will you look at that!"
Wash: "What is it?"
Book: "Toward the end of the Unification War, the Demeter Orbital Yards built the first and only Battleship in the Independent Navy: the 'Lotus'. A week after she was launched, Demeter was overrun by the Alliance. Her class was designed to give pause to the new Alliance Cruisers. After mauling the IAV Cortes in deep space, she headed for St. Albans, but never arrived. Her fate is one of the great mysteries of the war."
Zoe: "And we found her."
Jayne: "Great! Where can we sell it?"

"I give up. I admit it. I'm a Browncoat."

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Wednesday, April 14, 2004 4:50 PM

JASONZZZ



So, if you drive a ship in space, would you still be a squid?





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Wednesday, April 14, 2004 4:57 PM

GUNRUNNER


Well a few things I’ve seen hint to some space combat. In ‘The Message’ Zoe asks “Our we hit!?!” when the Alliance gunship fires at it. It seems to me that she had experienced a near hit in a spacecraft before but was not a expert in space combat. In Trash Yo-Saf-Bridge says that the war buddy bond is hard to brake. Well Monty don’t seem to be the infantrymen type. Could he have been in the Browncoat Navy? Maybe a pilot of a troop ship or landing craft and that’s how he and Mal met, it would also explain why he captain’s a cargo ship (maybe its his old ship?)

I think that if the Independence had any naval forces they were small Blockade Runners and Commerce Raiders like the German’s utilized in WWII. They may also have had some proper military ships but they would be insignificant compared to what the Alliance could muster with all their resources and money.


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Thursday, April 15, 2004 6:01 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


Unfortunately there is no real way of saying unless the BDM brings it up.

I find it hard to believe that the Independents didn't have some sort of navy. They moved ground troops (Mal, Zoe, and others) from one world to another to fight. They had air support (skiffs) according to the episode "Serenity". That to me says they had ships of some sort. Now whether they were capital ships is yet to be seen.

It would seem to me that some Alliance cruisers or ships were bound to have sided w/ the Independents or were captured by crews. That or large ships were converted for the purposes the Browncoats needed them for.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."


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Thursday, April 15, 2004 11:54 AM

EMBASSY


I always intepreted "Angels" as Close Air Support from the Browncoat Air Force, which may have performed other missions like troop transport, long range strike, offensive counter-air and other things. Maybe all the time I spent in the Air Force has biased me.

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Thursday, April 15, 2004 12:19 PM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by Embassy:
I always intepreted "Angels" as Close Air Support from the Browncoat Air Force...



Well that doesn’t mean the "Angels" weren’t space capable fighters. Take the Womack’s gunship for example it was capable of combat in both space and in atmo. I assume by the time Firefly takes place a small craft can have both space engines and atmo engines without any serous loss of space.

The term "Angels" reminds me of a comment in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising where a Soviet commander mentions that his troops have started calling the NATO A-10s (A deadly Close Air Support jet for the non military literate) 'Crosses of Death' or something similar. Both names have a kind of religious feel to them.

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Thursday, April 15, 2004 12:31 PM

MILESLONG


Quote:

Originally posted by Talvin:

2) Naval action between capital ships just really wasn't part of the war! A pretty good case can be made that this was the first ever Interstellar War (and only one so far), so alot of stuff had to be made up along the way. Ground and Air Combat tech would have been in goodly supply from Earth-that-Was, but such "navy" ships as existed were primarily Cutters and Corvettes for anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, etc. Colony Transports could be turned into Troop Transports very quickly, but Ships of the Line are another matter entirely. The Alliance Cruiser could well have come along at the end of the war, or even after. What we see of the "Cruiser" indicates that it is more of a mobile base than anything else; there to support ground troops, carry a wing of fighters, etc. It does NOT come across as a ship that thinks it will ever run into a hostile in its own class.



I would think that option 2 is the most likely. But if the Civil War inspiration holds true, then remember that there was signifigant Naval action. The Union managed a blockade that streched all along the southern states in the Atlantic. That is no small feat. The thing that makes it so forgetable is that the South never had a fleet to challange it with, nor any highly skilled Captains (with the level of competence of a Lee or Jackson). So the South lacking a Naval Hero and a Fleet for him to command, never caused a noteworthy sea battle.

That said there were blockade runners and such. But they wern't very successful. Heck they lost the South's diplomat to the Union Navy and the Union only released him to prevent Britan from siding with the South.

In the Role Playing Game that a friend of mine is running we have about 3/4 assumed that this is the way it went for the Indpendents. Not the captured diplomat, but the very limited space navy.

Miles Long
or Jeff

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Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:35 PM

TALVIN


Oh, I am not saying they had *no* fleet, or that the naval aspects were insignificant. Just that, yes, like in the American Civil War, it was rather lopsided. Hera and Serenity Valley had some pretty large troop numbers, at least according to the deleted scene, and I don't think they walked or took little ships like the Firefly class. The Med Ships seen in another deleted scene are no small potatoes themselves, and I am sure there were some big transport vessels running around.

Blockades in space are a little more problematic than the one in the Civil War. They may have *attempted* blockade, but I think the blockade runners were probably a bit more successful in this 'Verse. Too much area to interdict! This fits in well with my interpretation of the role of the Alliance Cruisers: mobile bases for the faster ships and logistics and C3I for the ground elements.

To risk borrowing from another 'Verse, probably a bit prone to Trench Run Disease without its fighter escort, though. If the Browncoats won any battles in space, that's probably how they did it.

[Edited to remove a thought I started, forgot to finish, and now have forgotten entirely.]


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Thursday, April 15, 2004 3:47 PM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by Talvin:
Hera and Serenity Valley had some pretty large troop numbers, at least according to the deleted scene, and I don't think they walked or took little ships like the Firefly class.



I think they may have used lots of smaller transports and a few larger transports as bases since the Alliance probably have lots of patrol ships and smaller warships (Frigates and Corvettes for example) that could easily hunt down a large lumbering troop ships.

What I think what they did for planetary assault was have a few big converted cargo ships or colony ships acting a mobile bases much like the modern day Tarawa LHAs and Wasp LHDs these ships would load the troops rollers, hover tanks, IFVs on to the smaller transports that would make land fall on the planet. Much like the landings at Normandy or Iwo Jima, once the assault forces from the smaller ships had made a (Hopefully) covert landing and had secured ground the big ships would land and set up the heavy fortifications and drop off the big armor, like the browncoats equivalent of the M1A1.


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Friday, April 16, 2004 2:32 AM

DAVEY


Im thinking that any capital ships in the war would be like the big american carriers of today,too expensive and fragile to put in harms way directly. After all there are no star trek type defensive shields,AFAIK, so one good hit with a nuke and most any ship would be toast.i would imagine that it would be easier to cobble together some kind of makeshift carriers from existing designs than produce a true ship of the line.

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Friday, April 16, 2004 2:46 AM

MILESLONG


Lopsided. Yep that's word.

But something to remember, no blockade is going to be 100% succesful. The goal of the blockade isn't to interfere with military units per se. It is to interfere with commerce. The point behind any blockade is to cause popular government support to dwindle. That said, colony worlds (like the south) would be very dependent on imported products.

Serenity Valley would have to have been a major point on the map (maybe like Savana?), drawing resources for the cause. So putting it aside, what was everywhere else like?

And there were some naval battles in the civil war. But they didn't amount to much. Look at the Iron Clads. Heck the south floated the first submarine.

So I would think that were some space battles. Even the testing of some innovations (nothing like the Rom cloak), though I can't think off what at this hour.

*ruminate plot on that a bit*

Since there are some major departures from the American Civil War, and they are typically to foster plot and characterization, I wouldn't be to suprised to find that the rebs had a decent sized ship. Not enough to make a difference though.

Later, I've been awake 25 hours and still have 1 more email to right.

Good thread though.

Miles Long
or Jeff

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Friday, April 16, 2004 3:05 AM

LTNOWIS


These are all pretty good ideas. Probably, fighters are simply more effective than direct ship-to-ship actions, making the cruiser's green plasma rays just for demolishing derelicts and emergency defense. Mostly they'd just scramble their already alert fighters. While the Browncoats probably had a pretty small navy, it was certainly able to ferry Mal and Zoe to two or three planets during the war. On the other hand, they've had some supply problems, like when they didn't have any food. But I think naval actions were mostly limited to supply, transport, and blockade.

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Friday, April 16, 2004 3:10 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


Quote:

Originally posted by MilesLong:
Quote:

Originally posted by Talvin:

2) Naval action between capital ships just really wasn't part of the war! A pretty good case can be made that this was the first ever Interstellar War (and only one so far), so alot of stuff had to be made up along the way. Ground and Air Combat tech would have been in goodly supply from Earth-that-Was, but such "navy" ships as existed were primarily Cutters and Corvettes for anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, etc. Colony Transports could be turned into Troop Transports very quickly, but Ships of the Line are another matter entirely. The Alliance Cruiser could well have come along at the end of the war, or even after. What we see of the "Cruiser" indicates that it is more of a mobile base than anything else; there to support ground troops, carry a wing of fighters, etc. It does NOT come across as a ship that thinks it will ever run into a hostile in its own class.



I would think that option 2 is the most likely. But if the Civil War inspiration holds true, then remember that there was signifigant Naval action. The Union managed a blockade that streched all along the southern states in the Atlantic. That is no small feat. The thing that makes it so forgetable is that the South never had a fleet to challange it with, nor any highly skilled Captains (with the level of competence of a Lee or Jackson). So the South lacking a Naval Hero and a Fleet for him to command, never caused a noteworthy sea battle.



Though I agree it is most likely that the Independents had a much smaller fleet than the Alliance, that does not mean they were not necessarily naval engagements.

As to the South's "lack" of skilled sea captains, I would like to remind you of Captain Raphael Semmes, commander of the CSS Alabama, a very successful commerce raider. The Alabama sunk the USS Hatteras and captured its crew. It only lost to the USS Kearsarge due to poor powder sold to them by an English merchant. The powder was of such low quality that it was slow to light or did not provide the power to accurately fire the Alabama's cannons.

There was also Capt. James I. Waddell, commander of the CSS Shenandoah. In less than a year on the seas the Shenandoah burned seven Union ships and captured two more for ransom, all with the liability of a crew less than what was necessary for the proper running of the ship. After taking on more crew in Australia, they captured four more Union ships before learning the war ended. They then sailed to Britian and gave up the Shenandoah so they could return home.

Quote:

That said there were blockade runners and such. But they wern't very successful. Heck they lost the South's diplomat to the Union Navy and the Union only released him to prevent Britan from siding with the South.


Very true. Only lack of resources and actual ships to convert to warships kept the South from having a navy of note. There were skilled officers enough, just no ships for them to command.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."


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Friday, April 16, 2004 6:57 AM

KUGELBLITZ


"So, if you drive a ship in space, would you still be a squid?"

Oh my goodness that made me laugh. Are Space Marines Jarheads or Bubble heads? And so on...

If we are accepting the Civil War as a model for the naval aspect of the Alliance/Independents War then heterogenity will certainly rule the day. Each Independent combatant would field whatever they could improvise or appropriate (which means that capitol ships COULD have been grabbed at the outset) and then follow on with cobbled versions of ships they could build up later on.

Get this though, troops are CHEAP (no offense to any infantry folk) and ships are not. Ships cannot take ground and hold it either. So Serenity could have been a holding action for the Independents. Why?

The Alliance prolly ahd successfully interdicted the planet by then (note the siege conditions). The Alliance prolly had more warcraft at the onset than anyone else, or they concentrated faster. Not only that but resources seem to mentioned a great deal in the same breath as Alliance, which gives them the edge. Ships take years to build-and not little Fireflies, I am thinking of combat capable ships with purpose built weapons and whatnot. The CSS Virginia is an example of a cobbled together ship that fought well against a purpose built ship (the Monitor). The Virginia sunk a bunch of ships before she retired, too. Yet the scattered resources in the south prevented the Confederacy from fielding any effective CLASSES of ships, and for their purposes perhaps they didn't need too, as their opponents were in their front yard. The Union thought diffferent, as they continued to build an effective fleet to deny access to southern ports.

In space though, controlling access is everything. Logistics. Rule. Everything. If your foe can't eat or has only a few bullets or bandaids, you have already started winning.

So both the Alliance and the Indies HAD to build ships that could either control or disrupt access to strategic worlds. (or maybe the War was a series of Indie redoubts being reduced) .The Alliance prolly built a mass of ship classes after a few years went by, while the Indies had to scrape togwether a few mismatched craft from their scattered hoards of resources and on hand craft while they built ships each according totheir need.

Meaning that some interesting matches could occur in space, since the Alliance would not ever really know just what might come up on their fire control radars next.

Just like the Captain of the USS Monitor did when he steamed into Hampton Roads, on a larger scale.

"We are exporting democracy because we have all of this unused democracy lying around at home. Why not make some money doing it?"

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Friday, April 16, 2004 7:13 AM

BADGERSHAT


Here's an idea--

We haven't seen a whole lot of out-of-atmo weaponry, have we? I mean, sure the Alliance ship blew up the wreck the Reavers had hit, but it was a stationary target, and it was space-to-space destruction.

Maybe, there's simply not a whole lot of Space-to-Ground- or even Space-to-Atmo-capable weaponry in the war? Most of what we've seen is handheld or vehicle-mounted groundwar stuff, with occasional gunships (again, though, only in-atmo combat, unless I'm having a serious memtal lapse...).

Maybe there was never really a pressing need to develop this kind of weaponry, what with all the myriad colonies--too many, too spread out to make developing Space-to-Atmo/Ground-weapons cost effective.

Or maybe, just MAYBE, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.



--The Hat

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Friday, April 16, 2004 8:47 AM

GUNRUNNER


BadgersHat don't forget Womack’s gunship's had both atmo and space missiles (They may even be the same weapon capable of dual use) and Space to Ground weapons are easy to develop heck we have them now! A Inter Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) is an example its Warhead(s) exit the atmosphere using their rocket and then renter atmo and precede to their targets with some serious accuracy (The US Navy's Trident D-5s are reported to be able to hit a football field from several thousand miles away!). Since the weapons are already in space there is no need for a massive missile just a small rocket to kick the warhead out of orbit and towards the target.

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Friday, April 16, 2004 8:57 AM

BADGERSHAT


Ahh, but the crucial difference is this-- an ICBM is launched FROM the atmosphere, OUT of the atmosphere, and BACK INTO said atmosphere.

What *I* am talking about is, a missile designed to be launched originally from a space-faring vehicle--much different. The logistics involved (stabilizing a vehicle against the launch velocity, tracking from space, launch-to-target guidance, propelling from a space-based launch site, etc)--very much difficult. Even a missile from a sattellite (sp?) isn't the same, since a satellite (I don't know how to spell it, so I'm gonna spell it differently every time I say it) a satelite is a stationary object, already well within the planetary gravity well.

Space to Ground Ballistic is not something we have now, and would probably be very difficult to develop. And, since the majority of war is won with the ground force, I wonder if they'd bother?


--The Hat

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Friday, April 16, 2004 9:52 AM

KUGELBLITZ


dumb little heat seeking missiles have to fight gravity, turbulence, air resistance and maneuver against targets. That is now. Such devices are easily feasible in future.


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Friday, April 16, 2004 9:56 AM

BADGERSHAT


Quote:

Originally posted by Kugelblitz:
dumb little heat seeking missiles have to fight gravity, turbulence, air resistance and maneuver against targets. That is now. Such devices are easily feasible in future.

B]



Actually, the dumb little heat seeking missiles don't FIGHT gravity and air resistence, they USE it to their great advantage (missiles maneuver with rudders and such, like a plane, and need air resistence to do that... and gravity is the reason we have ICBM capability in the first place)

They are, of course, feasible in the future, but it's not the "Can they?" I'm pondering, it's the "Why would they?" that I'm going for.

--The Hat

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Friday, April 16, 2004 10:18 AM

GUNRUNNER


Quote:

Originally posted by BadgersHat:
The logistics involved (stabilizing a vehicle against the launch velocity, tracking from space, launch-to-target guidance, propelling from a space-based launch site, etc)--very much difficult.



In other words they need a weapon that can function like a small ship propelling its self to a particular point in orbit reentering and hitting a target, basically a space buzz bomb.

However once you get it to a point in Atmo modern day terrain following devices (Several warships in orbit can do a scan of the topography) can be used to so Launch to Target guidance is easier since the atmo to target stage is self guiding while the space to atmo can be guided from a ship.

Quote:

Originally posted by BadgersHat:
a satelite is a stationary object, already well within the planetary gravity well.


No it is not satellites can be given vary erratic orbits to achieve their goals, usually only comm and nav sats are geosyncraness.

Quote:

Originally posted by BadgersHat:
Space to Ground Ballistic is not something we have now, and would probably be very difficult to develop. And, since the majority of war is won with the ground force, I wonder if they'd bother?



If we (Earth today) did have Space to Ground weapons no one would admit it since the nations that could develop such weapons have signed a treaty banning such weapons. During the Cold War satellite (disguised communications sats etc) based nukes and conventional space guns were strongly coincided as a first strike weapons for use against both ground and space targets (Ship/Station/Sat to Satellite weapons do exist today).

Finally why would they? Pound they enemy's infrastructure, command and control and heavy entrenched forces from the safety or orbit.

I think it was the USAF that called space "The Ultimate High Ground."


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Friday, April 16, 2004 10:29 AM

MILESLONG


Quote:

Originally posted by BrownCoat1:
As to the South's "lack" of skilled sea captains, I would like to remind you of Captain Raphael Semmes, commander of the CSS Alabama, a very successful commerce raider. The Alabama sunk the USS Hatteras and captured its crew. It only lost to the USS Kearsarge due to poor powder sold to them by an English merchant. The powder was of such low quality that it was slow to light or did not provide the power to accurately fire the Alabama's cannons.

There was also Capt. James I. Waddell, commander of the CSS Shenandoah. In less than a year on the seas the Shenandoah burned seven Union ships and captured two more for ransom, all with the liability of a crew less than what was necessary for the proper running of the ship. After taking on more crew in Australia, they captured four more Union ships before learning the war ended. They then sailed to Britian and gave up the Shenandoah so they could return home.

Very true. Only lack of resources and actual ships to convert to warships kept the South from having a navy of note. There were skilled officers enough, just no ships for them to command.



All staffed by competent officers. But would you put them on the level of of a Lee ro Jackson? My opinion. That would be a stretch. Especially given the limited competence across the board of the Union offers (Navy and Army) that marked the front end of the war (Until Grant).

Trying to bring this away from history, and back to the Firefly fiction, I'll offer this. Good Drama doesn't assume that "all men are created equal" and that officer competence isn't defined by either a competent or incompetent state. In Drama (and in History too) we see a scale that includes a third state that would be defined historically by the personas of Lee, Grant, Patton, Rommel etc. These aren't just effective military leaders. They are greatly driven men who often end treated as Heroes and Villains (caps intended) by cultures they defend or assault. In Firefly Mal Reynolds is one. We have yet to be offered the names of others. But I wouldn't be too suprised if the Alliance was short on great heroes, and if the Great Heroes on both sides were ground pounders.

Miles Long
or Jeff

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Friday, April 16, 2004 10:30 AM

HOBBES


First off I don't think the 'Verse has satellite to surface weaponary. Far too easy to shoot down satellites (we can do it now). That kills real time communication and surveillance.

This makes having a fleet (much harder to shoot down then satellites) important for communication, command, and surveillance.

As for ground weapons if you orbital space you can deploy a variation on Project Thor.
Take big iron bars. Give it basic sensors and steerable vanes. Put bundles in orbit. If you see a target call it down in the basic area. Small computer has silhouette data (i.e. tanks, artillery, APC's, etc...) and laser illumination abilities. Drop say 20 thousand over an armor division and goodbye armor division.

That makes any combat beyond infantry actions near impossible if you can't contest orbit.
And if the other side has tanks, APC's, heavy artillery and your side has mortars you can pretty much see where that's going.

I think that makes a fleet a far sight more important.


-------------------------------------------------
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May the wind be always at your back.
May you be in heaven an hour before
The Devil knows you’re dead.

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Friday, April 16, 2004 10:32 AM

KUGELBLITZ


Missiles gotta fly or they are rocks. Fight-=use.

The Why Missiles part though. In a universe as dark as Whedon's can be, where people are just plain armed, how can there be a void where weapons aren't?

"We are exporting democracy because we have all of this unused democracy lying around at home. Why not make some money doing it?"

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Friday, April 16, 2004 12:26 PM

TALVIN


(What have I started, here?)

My basic premise, from the beginning, has not been that space weapons were infeasible or that either side *couldn't* possess them. Rather, I propose that they did not have them for a while, because there had not been a need for weapons to fight an interstellar war before the Unification War. In any military, technology develops in response to need, at least in theory.

Once the need becomes apparent, then you have to build it. Perfecting a single piece of new tech takes time, money, and bright people willing to take risks. Putting a whole generation of new tech into one shell and making it a Capital Ship takes all that and cubes it and cubes it again. Then, did they ever need a ship the size and complexity of an Alliance Cruiser before? Probably not. A whole infrastructure has to be built to build and support it. People have to be trained in how to operate it: it is not Serenity on a larger scale, it's a whole new skillset! Logistics has to be taken into account: something that big uses alot of beans and chow mein, not to mention parts that had never existed before the war.

It can be done. Look at the histories of the American Civil War* and World War II, respectively. Both saw huge RMAs (Revolutions in Military Affairs). They also took more time, in part for that very reason.

Another reason why it might have been more focused on ground combat, at least from the Alliance end of things: somebody had to pay for that war. We get a sense that it was largely confined to the outer colonies; those in the Core just weren't affected by it all that much. "Why do we need to fund a whole fleet of these big ships in such a hurry? It's just a bunch of upstart hicks! That's what we pay the Army for!" As somebody else pointed out, people are cheap, especially in a 'Verse that sees nothing wrong with slave labor in various forms.

* With respect to the International Browncoat Community, I am now trying to be careful to identify *which* Civil War I speak of. Sadly, "The Civil War" has many meanings to many people. I refer, of course, to what many of my fellow Tennesseans still call "The Recent Unpleasantness With The DamYankees." I imagine everybody knows, but it is perhaps a bit less jarring to the thought-processes with that extra word thrown in.

"I give up. I admit it. I'm a Browncoat."

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Friday, April 16, 2004 1:29 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.


Maybe ship based space weapons were initially developed just prior to the migration from Earth. Seems plausible since they didn't know for sure if there were any threats that the people who left Earth would have developed some sort of vessel for defending the migration fleet. I have no idea how long the newer worlds and moons have been settled in the Firefly 'verse, but at worst case they could have started building ships with weapons based on old designs. An at best case they could have just taken the old escorts out of mothballs and pressed them into service.

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