Feasibility: FT weapon/warship trade?, Because galactic arms dealing is fun

Just that I'm dying to get in on breaking the Dominion shipping monopoly with PtP FTL.

Problem is that my tech is superior (or ICly viewed as such, although I tend to lean towards Culture power levels) to pretty much everything else, QUETZAL has no qualms about horribly raping the IP of any non-Citizen, my population is nice and small and spread between seven worlds (with plenty of room to expand, especially given allied Orbital/Habitat technology), and I already eat planets for raw materials.

Yeah, I kinda fall under your aforementioned "uber-technowank."

I have a nice sIC reason to export Avatars and other military technology (which shall be declared in the EULA), but I'd just like some pretext that makes sense with a post-scarcity nation. Only thing I can really think of that would make a reasonable trade would be (military) intelligence, but A) people would probably be unwilling to provide it, and it's nigh impossible to judge the value of said intelligence, especially given its mutable nature.

Good luck getting coordinate data out of FleetCom.

As one Ft RPer to another and as one known for wheeling out inordinately scaled ordinance Owning your own GALAXY is ..well

Super mega wank.

Owning a galaxy no one else can find is ..ah yes

Ludicrous. Utterly ludicrous. Unless you can stop ALL data transfer and any citizens movement between with them giving up to full and total personality and memory and physical access. Which would make you about as popular as a samizdat swarm.

It is obscenely hard to hide the location of a galaxy or its make-up with any half decent visual references or data storage device smuggled through much less from AI / SI entities or ship minds or even basic FT wetware.

You intend to use HIGH grade tech trade on a trans galactic scale with the milky way (the unpleasant warsy bits can go dangle in the wind for all I care mind j00) thus joining in with our general meta klade milieu while in turn receiving high grade luxury goods. The milky way is full of people who will take office at your "trade offer" as such and dispose of it out the nearest airlock.

"all goods can be only transported on government vessels, and are of course heavily taxed."

... Ah ..no. This is not the way to healthy economic exchange. Unless you believe in protectionism. and if you well Nothing will save j00. Oh sure at a certain scale internal markets become effective in supporting themselves but it caps growth and progress and economic stagnation and decline cycles are sure to follow with dismal regularity. Especially if you increase integration.

As someone who DOES do a certain scale of arms dealing in FT...

1. Deregulate your international trade a certain amount. Like .considerably.

2. Yes for gods sake install safeties or pilots or even horrible control charges on inbound non national vessels but stopping foreign shipping totally lowers the entire greater economy one which effectively your trying to integrate in to make the entire cake bigger.

3. Luxury for Tech will not work.

4. A heavily taxed limited market is NOT a healthy or EFFECTIVE one. your competitiveness will drop SHARPLY especially if you allow your protectionist environment to insulate your companies from real competition.

In short you will become fat heavy and unprofitable.



also

stares at Otagian vessels attempting to probe ZMSF merchant marine megafreighter fabber platforms carrying ZMI ip goods ...notes this will not be ..very effective and may give them a horrible load of bad data. Or a CAM powered EW discharge. To the face. Or sensor array.

Oh, it's not so much scanning the freighters. It's usually "buy one, take it apart molecule by molecule, and assemble an arseload of copies." Mind you, this is still relatively rare, and usually QUETZAL will simply take an idea and make it work with available technology instead of blatant theft.

One - Fornax is actually a dwarf spheroidal galaxy and is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Two - The entire Dominion exists in ONE of its six globular clusters. And, as Fornax is made up of mostly Population II stars (which, correct me if I'm wrong, are very unlikely to support planets capable of sustaining human life), the Dominion encompasses very little actual territory. So it's not like I "own a galaxy". Just no one I know of has claimed part of it yet.

Three - The Dominion's presence in the Milky Way is less than a decade old (this time around), and as such it is almost completely military in nature. And up until this point, Feazanthian territory in the Milky Way has been very isolationist.

Four - I do not discount the fact that a very dedicated party would glean the jump coordinates of a celestial body in Fornax owned by the Dominion. However, as the only way the Dominion knows of to journey between the two galaxies is the Bridge, I very much pity the unfortunate ship that wants to make the jump into what are effectively a hotbed of savage tribes with FTL access.

Five - I never said the plan was smart, but it is exactly how a Feazanthian would think. From what I gather, there are gobs of idiots gallivanting around II with more money than they know what to do with who are going to crap themselves when it's demonstrated that a LOLSTARDESTROYER gets assraped by a Arbiter Mk.4A using tactics that weren't designed to look cool and weapons that make actual sense. And unless I miss my guess, phase One will be spot on in its implementation (I could still be very, very wrong). Phase two is not yet complete, and before it's done it will be changed.

Six - Yes, your point about allowing non-government vessels access to the Bridge makes sense. However, a Feazanthian official would balk at the idea of letting a foreigner near the very lifeblood of the Milky Way Expeditionary Force. "What if they have an antimatter bomb on board that, gods forbid, is capable of escaping our detection?" THAT is how a Feazanthian would think. They're paranoid and generally unlikable by anyone but themselves. And, unless I change my plans around, the government vessel thing wont take effect until phase two which, like I said, is still not 100% done.

Seven - Competition for my companies comes from other, non-Feazanthian shipyards. If a design is fail, then it wont sell.

Eight - THIS IS NOT FREE MARKET. Effectively it's independent shipyards selling their wares to the government, who in turn mark them up and sell them to other nations. Yes, it's wasteful and inefficient, but that's not how THEY think. And, I'm hoping, the quality of the wares will ultimately make them worth the cost.

Nine - I have no qualms bankrupting countries that are stupid. This creates more markets for territory buyup.


Plus it's not like my nation isn't self-sufficient on its own. They've existed ICly for seventy years after recovering from a devastating war without outside contact of any sort.

Just about ready to finalize the first release of tech. Set to include...

The HSF-25A "Avenger" Superiority Fighter (which, yes, I know is a stupid idea)
KITE-I series defensive drones
Shamshir Mk.III P.A.C.A
D77 series Modular Light Warship
Bloodhound E/A FF
Arbiter Mk. 4A CF
Arbiter Mk. 4B CGE
Arbiter Mk. 4C CFG
Praetor CVGH
Avatar Mk. II BCV
Arelian Defender BB

...along with all relevant munitions, electronics, and weapons specs.

The second release will include...

Cazador DDG
SC-83 Trident Corvette
Prophet Mk. II CVG
Various ground vehicles and weapons