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Siege wrote:After all, I'm certain their ordeal has cured them of the surprisingly common misconception that nation-states are owed some kind of... loyalty.

HAIL HYDRA PROFIT



Anyway, I know it kind of drifted a little, but we do expect an answer about the punitive strikes thing in Lothal. Just bringing it up so as not to get it lost in the shuffle, if this chemical weapons thing picks up steam.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3866582

The Umerians began the process of providing such an answer- as per my internal naval affairs post, they were already liaising with the Lothali government, in an attempt to (and this part is an expansion)...

1) Coordinate with what semblance of a national military the Lothali government has left in the areas the Umerians intended to target.
2) Avoid convincing Lothal to scramble their national air force or navy (presumably a handful of corvetty/frigatey things and a few dozen fourth generation jet fighters) in an attempt to fend off the Umerian triphibious battlegroup.
3) Work on organizing economic relief for the devastated and nigh-depopulated coastal regions of Lothal, or at least selected entrepots that can provide a start for relief in the area.
4) Get permission to establish a major military base on Lothali soil, which Dr. Mahogany did NOT make explicit reference to in character.

So the Umerians are already doing all these things and would logically be among the major nations with the closest diplomatic ties to Lothal due to proximity.* They would be the logical go-to men to help smooth things over and weave in the 'new' round of earlier strikes into the existing operational plans.
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*Umeria basically considers the east coast of the Vedic Subcontinent to be more or less within its sphere of interest, and they now have enough economic muscle that their opinion matters, at least to an extent.

Edit - Rougeice - I'm hoping those interested in the Lothal question will start in a next door meeting room, since not everyone present will care about that. If I can use that distraction to pull a major threat to Champa I will. (Umeria-Hakistan wars tend to take place in my territory and there's only so much cleanup you want to do). It could also lead back to the old Rhenish proposal of the World Council.


for Lothal, Champa mostly just want's to keep an eye on things, although we expect to be asked to help in the cleanup and restoration work.

I've got my exhibition post still half written, should be able to get that up soon. It is dated the 6th - the day after the current talks but before things get interesting. There's also the Champa-OGRE deal with Siege, which I think is finished and ready to go up, probably dated the 7th.

Now now, maddoc, the only Umerian-Hakistani War was a Umerian intervention in a Champo-Hakistani War. You're the one they get belligerent and dimwitted about...

yes, and I'd like my fields to be usable after they've been 'cleansed' next time

Y'know,it would be nice to be told we'd backed a possible terrorist before we read about it in the papers.

madd0ct0r wrote:yes, and I'd like my fields to be usable after they've been 'cleansed' next time

Oh come on, those chemical agents break up in rain. Rain. In Champa.



[I am actually completely making this up as I go along; I had no prior ideas about what or even if Umerian ground combat forces were involved in the war]

Now, to be fair, if Umerian army units were involved there were probably some minefields to clean up after the war. Minefields are bad enough, and don't dissolve in water.

Pft. If we are going to huff and puff over chemical weapons, I ought to declare Kagaria a terrorist state since they just lobbed chemical weapons by the dozens at me.

Hm, I actually seem to remember that being a rumor, people freaking out and saying "Gas! Gas!" when it wasn't true. But I guess I must be wrong.

Umerian observers would react about the same either way, unless the Kagarians did something fundamentally new in terms of gas warfare.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Y'know,it would be nice to be told we'd backed a possible terrorist before we read about it in the papers.

You are completely free to nullify anything anyone makes up regarding your nation if you were not consulted beforehand. People can pitch and float ideas but at the end of the day it's your stuff and you get to say what goes and what doesn't until you write something down yourself.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Y'know,it would be nice to be told we'd backed a possible terrorist before we read about it in the papers.

Traced back to Orion citizens was the intent, not necessarily the government. The intent was that this was also in the 70s when Orion was trying to decouple Tahiti from the rest of the kingdoms.

If that was the intent then saying "funded by our present host" really says it wrong, as that quite clearly implies it was the nation and/or the government and/or the King, not merely citizens. If you want to have it be Orion citizens, you can, as long as they are radicals/extremists that are not associated with the government (they voted against the government, for instance, since back in the 70's you could actually do that).

on a different tangent - Simon - do you want to collab on a Umeria-Champa-Hakistan discussion regarding where the new railway crosses the main border river?

If you intend for it to be a shipping route the bridge has to be large enough to let them boats under. And given the mines devlepoing in the hinterland a shipping route seems sensible.

I'm all for it; send me a link to an edible googledoc and I'll be on it like a plate of fried crabs. Or whatever you said.

Is this anything to do with the rail line I mentioned my people pitching?

Also probably the one the Umerians were talking about building up to or beyond the Champan-Umerian border, going the other way...

@Siege - yup, it's that one. San Dorado Corps are building it, but as the client I've got various duties like telling you how high the bridge needs to be to get boats under.

Right; it just seems logical that as builders and operators and possibly (part) owners Acheron or SANDEX representatives would be involved in the talks, even if only to take notes.

I'm working on a fluff piece for my space program. Did we ever agree on who got the first man into space? Was there a moon landing at any point?

Can Orion claim the first space station or is someone else having that?

The UOCSR has a fairly active space station program, for both military and civilian use. For the moon, it might operate some kind of outpost...

I believe we decided early on that no-one has landed on the moon yet, but that orbital traffick is developed broadly to 'our world level'.

San Dorado's space program focuses on two things. One is mainstream commercial lift, including technically man-rated rockets. I doubt there's much of a market for orbital taxi's but it's a nice capability to have.

The second is crazy experimental rocket planes. These mainly serve to pioneer new aerospace technologies. Some of the aircraft produced can reach the edge of outer space. There is no mass production here, but the tech developed from these experimentals goes into more regular fighters and such.

We have very little interest in things like space stations, unless they further our long-term plans for asteroid mining.

Ok, duly noted. I remember agreeing that Orion wasn't the first one to get a man in space, but is there any objection to us having built the first space station? Something like Salyut or Skylab at first, then something bigger like Mir before progressing to our current station, Aurora.

The Umerians are just getting the Space Jeep ready.

[This might be its real name. It's that or Grasshopper.]

It's not cutting edge in material science, or at least isn't now, but it can take off, deliver about 5 tons to LEO, and land proudly on its tailfins little poinky retractable feets, on a large concrete pad, as God and Robert Heinlein intended.

Other than that, about all they'd be playing with is... as a rough cut:
-A very noncompetitive capsule design (enough so they might say "fuckit" and just purchase them from someone),
-ICBM-derived booster rockets (5-10 tons to LEO)
-A somewhat more distantly ICBM-derived medium-lift rocket with MIGHTY STRAPONS (~10-15 tons to LEO).
-They put up a couple of small space stations a few years back, but they de-orbited the things and there isn't a new one up there right now.

No major space science program in their own right, or at least nothing that isn't collaborative with other countries. They might well be angling to a position as primus inter pares for an Austrafrican Space Agency reaching over to the Vedics and including, for example, Champa (if you're into that, Maddoctor? Gill, if you're still around?), working on something like this.

No Flying Tankski? I'm disappointed Sergei

And yes, this fluff piece will include the legendary Johnny von Braun, first head of the Orion Space Forces.

Umeria is not Zenobia; it only shares 50% of the same letters, alas. The Umerians wouldn't approve a heavy-lift rocket like the N-1 unless they foresaw a need, and they're not going to the moon in this decade. Or the next. They're just not big like China, you see...

And even the Zenobians wouldn't be mad enough to launch a flying tankski in canon; that was something I'd planned as a chivalrous gesture... not that you needed it you lucky bastard!

!

Hm, on review, that actually is more like eight to ten tons to LEO for Space Jeep.