Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:Something has always bothered me. In the HV, what prevents a navy from destroying an enemy's dispatch boats as a more direct way of attacking their economy?

In the case of Manticore and Haven, each of their economies were probably tied to the other in some respects. As well as the SL. But when it comes to the MA, why wouldn't the MAN target all of the GA's dispatch boats? I don't know whether there is some unspoken or written treaties where DBs are off limits, but I know the MAN would care less about either.

If the countries were already at war then (except maybe for diplomatic dispatch boats) they're free to (try to) destroy each others dispatch boats. Of course the dispatch boats (except for navy couriers) probably stay well away from the front lines and it's fairly hard to find or catch them.

If you try to hit them in a neutral system when they're carrying dispatches there you risk bringing the neutral into the war against you -- as you just committed a violation of their sovereignty.

And if you're trying to wreck an opponent's economy before declaration of war -- well, ambushing their dispatch boat is an act of war and is likely to lead to them sending their navy against your systems. And if you are willing to start a war now there are more impactful targets for your initial strikes than some scattered dispatch boats.

Now the MAlign might be a bit different, as nobody knows where they are. If they're willing to abandon any hope of convincing people that Galton was the head of the snake then sure, they can start trying to pick off dispatch boats using their spider ships and nobody would be able to retaliate (at least not until Darius was found). OTOH if they're willing to spend the time to insert spider ships into systems to ambush dispatch boats why limit their economic damage to just those? Why not blow away the orbitals, freight handling stations, merchants, and any navy vessels that they can?

I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

The MA's armed streak drive DBs can run and gun the GA's DBs down.

penny wrote:Now the MAlign might be a bit different, as nobody knows where they are. If they're willing to abandon any hope of convincing people that Galton was the head of the snake then sure, they can start trying to pick off dispatch boats using their spider ships and nobody would be able to retaliate (at least not until Darius was found). OTOH if they're willing to spend the time to insert spider ships into systems to ambush dispatch boats why limit their economic damage to just those? Why not blow away the orbitals, freight handling stations, merchants, and any navy vessels that they can?

I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

The MA's armed streak drive DBs can run and gun the GA's DBs down.[/quote]

You forget that the Alignment or their proxies and agents have been messing with the economies and stability of all sorts of systems and organizations for centuries. Piracy seems to be a favorite ploy since they are both expendable and more or less efficient in creating havoc.

Ships go missing all the time. They have accidents and just vanish unless someone stumbles across wreckage or something identifiable is spotted in a place it should not be. Pirates are sort of self funding and if a shipment of agricultural equipment gets sold though a fence the trail is usually not able to be followed. The trick is catching a ship, even a DB, where you can capture or destroy it without being noticed. Put a Q-ship or an armed freighter into a flow of ships in hyperspace- particularly gravity waves- and you can dispose of the evidence by letting it get carried off to destruction.
The trick is knowing what and when to go after the ships. Of course you can always just sabotage a ship by screwing with it's software (the Alignment seems to like using worms to lose containment on fusion reactors) or some sort of bomb and, again, having a ship go BOOM in hyperspace or out on the edge of almost any system usually will mean that nobody is going to find the wreckage.

penny wrote:I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

The MA's armed streak drive DBs can run and gun the GA's DBs down.

1) by definition, DBs have no offensive weapons
a) they have no mass available for them
b) the reason why they are allowed to go everywhere with immunity is they don't have any weapons on them.

2) Steak DBs are no faster in the same region of space than a normal DB. They can just go into other regions that allow them to get from point a to b faster. It's like taking the highway vs being stuck in traffic. Yes, they might get to the destination first, but this is hyperspace, there is no specific space where a DB will exit to guarantee an interception

penny wrote:I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

The MA's armed streak drive DBs can run and gun the GA's DBs down.

Theemile wrote:1) by definition, DBs have no offensive weapons
a) they have no mass available for them
b) the reason why they are allowed to go everywhere with immunity is they don't have any weapons on them.

2) Steak DBs are no faster in the same region of space than a normal DB. They can just go into other regions that allow them to get from point a to b faster. It's like taking the highway vs being stuck in traffic. Yes, they might get to the destination first, but this is hyperspace, there is no specific space where a DB will exit to guarantee an interception

An armed ship that approximate size is called a frigate.

If anything, a streak drive DB should be slower to accelerate than a regular DB in the same region of space, because its hyper-generator is much more massive. So much so that the minimum size for a streak drive ship has been discussed to be the size of Honor's personal transport: a small fast freighter.

penny wrote:I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

You're talking about attacking DBs inside of the GA volume. That means the DB is not the ship that the attacker needs to worry about, but instead the defenders that will be around, be it in the for of LACs or picket destroyers and cruisers. An attacker needs to operate like a pirate and lie doggo, waiting for the DB to translate from alpha, while other ships may be appearing and may detect it. So it can't be too close.

Though there's a good chance that DBs keep a schedule.

penny wrote:If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

That seems excessive, only high priority or confidential data needs to use a DB. So most non-military DB's belong to news organizations or diplomatic services. Normal economic activity flows through freighters.

There will be worlds that are hurt by commerce raiding in general, but a DB is not a high value target (the highest priority data will be sent in the form of multiple encrypted copies on DB's with different travel paths).

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

That seems excessive, only high priority or confidential data needs to use a DB. So most non-military DB's belong to news organizations or diplomatic services. Normal economic activity flows through freighters.

There will be worlds that are hurt by commerce raiding in general, but a DB is not a high value target (the highest priority data will be sent in the form of multiple encrypted copies on DB's with different travel paths).

There is a reason I decided to use this old thread for the thought. Stock market quotes emanating from key financial hubs around the galaxy, like the MBS, are very high priority and very confidential. On Wall Street, time is money. If the latest stock quotes are disseminated using very slow means of travel like freighters, then someone like the "Dukes" can get to a system much quicker with a Dispatch Boat or an even faster Dispatch boat and corner the market.

Time is money in the financial sector.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:I am not suggesting they limit their attacks to only DBs, inasmuch as include the DBs on the menu. If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

You're talking about attacking DBs inside of the GA volume. That means the DB is not the ship that the attacker needs to worry about, but instead the defenders that will be around, be it in the for of LACs or picket destroyers and cruisers. An attacker needs to operate like a pirate and lie doggo, waiting for the DB to translate from alpha, while other ships may be appearing and may detect it. So it can't be too close.

Though there's a good chance that DBs keep a schedule.

I wouldn't think DBs are in the habit of having escorts. DBs usually travel much faster than their escorts. No? Even if not, I doubt a navy can afford to escort the many DBs needed to serve the galaxy. And, well, the speed of a DB should be its own protection.

Cue in the MAN and its faster streak drives and its stealthed ships and a whole new additional strategy of economic attack emerges.

penny wrote:If the dispatch boats are not checking in all over the galaxy, it seems the entire HV's economics should go haywire.

tlb wrote:That seems excessive, only high priority or confidential data needs to use a DB. So most non-military DB's belong to news organizations or diplomatic services. Normal economic activity flows through freighters.

There will be worlds that are hurt by commerce raiding in general, but a DB is not a high value target (the highest priority data will be sent in the form of multiple encrypted copies on DB's with different travel paths).

penny wrote:There is a reason I decided to use this old thread for the thought. Stock market quotes emanating from key financial hubs around the galaxy, like the MBS, are very high priority and very confidential. On Wall Street, time is money. If the latest stock quotes are disseminated using very slow means of travel like freighters, then someone like the "Dukes" can get to a system much quicker with a Dispatch Boat or an even faster Dispatch boat and corner the market.

Time is money in the financial sector.

I am not disagreeing that for traders and so on, time is money, but slowing things down only means the traders do not make as much money (boo hoo); it certainly does NOT mean the economy collapses.

You continue to to talk about faster streak boats; I hope you realize that only means that they can use higher bands in hyper-space. It does not mean that within a given band or in normal space that they are faster than a regular DB; most likely they are slower to accelerate because they are heavier.

penny wrote:I wouldn't think DBs are in the habit of having escorts. DBs usually travel much faster than their escorts. No? Even if not, I doubt a navy can afford to escort the many DBs needed to serve the galaxy. And, well, the speed of a DB should be its own protection.

Cue in the MAN and its faster streak drives and its stealthed ships and a whole new additional strategy of economic attack emerges.

DB's don't have escorts themselves, the emergence volume from hyperspace in each system is patrolled by the local squadron. If you want to sit around waiting to jump the emerging DB (like pirates do), there's a emergence zone picket in all GA systems looking specifically for people like you.