Jonathan_S wrote:Remember that the PNIE, hardly technical geniuses, generated a major upgrade in the effectiveness of the ex-SLN units they were given simply by overwriting the tac software with their out of date, off-the-shelf, standard Peep software.
My guess would be that before of the Legislaturalist regime, before the embargo went up, Havenite and Solarian software was mostly the same. They'd be trading all the time, and knowing the state of the educational system in the PRH, the Legislaturalists would have focused on importing what they could, if only to learn from it. Besides, we know that civilian Solarian software was pretty good, Manticore-level, by the 1920s.
The difference must have laid in doctrine. Unlike the SLN, the PN did actually fight with their ships. So they would know how to use the software and, as Jonathan and Relax said above, tweak it and adapt it to their hardware. The pre-war PN SDs like the DuQuesne class were already bigger and badder than what the SLN would field 20 years later, so there's no reason to think their software wasn't comparably more effective too.
Once the embargo went up, however, that channel was lost. I'm sure the PN and StateSec stole lots of copies of software, but without the technical people to teach them how to install and deploy whatever they'd got, they'd be stumbling blind. It could be done... in fact, it was probably done. The R&D kicked up in the PRH side and that in turn generated innovations that didn't come from the SLN and SL in general.
Then there was Darwin. The war with Manticore quickly weeded out what worked from what didn't. That and stealing Manty technology (soft and hard) was fed back into the PN R&D efforts. And since the embargo was up, the PN wasn't feeling in the mood of sharing any way. By the time the war ended and Pierre's reforms were part-way, they had a much better fighting force than the SLN as we've discussed.
Interesting thought: had they noticed how they pulled ahead of the SLN? The RMN was used to developing everything on its own, so they had little basis for comparison, and wouldn't tempt fate before it was necessary. But the PN had had this backchannel contact and had been receiving some SL tech; did they not notice how they left the SLN in the dust?
Oh well, I guess by the time Theisman and Honor could compare notes, the RMN had already had Byng and Crandall pay visits.