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Posted by: Father Tim
« on: July 17, 2008, 05:59:06 AM »

The terms of the Nine-Power Treaty, 3 AA:

Article I.
   No ship shall mount any gun greater than 16 inches diameter.

Article II.
   No ship shall exceed 35,000 tons displacement.

Article III.*
   No carrier shall exceed 33,000 tons displacement, and no more than two carriers of a Signing Polity shall exceed 27,000 tons displacement.

Article IV.
   No carrier shall mount any gun greater than 8 inches diameter, nor shall a carrier mount more than eight guns of a diameter greater than 5 inches.

Article V.
   No ship, other than a capital ship or carrier, shall exceed 10,000 tons displacement.  No ship, other than a capital ship, shall mount any gun larger than 8 inches diameter.

Article VI.
   No fortification, construction, improvement, or other preparation for war shall be undertaken in any star system of a Signing Polity, excepting a star system containing at least one population in excess of one hundred million (100,000,000) sentients resident upon a single orbital body.

Article VII.
   No armed vessel shall be built, purchased, contracted for or otherwise acquired by a Signing Polity, except as described within Chapter 2 of this document.

Article VIII.**
   No armed vessel exceeding 10,000 tons displacement shall be built for, contracted to, sold, given, or otherwise provided by any Signing Polity to any non-signing polity.

Article IX.
   In the event of a Signing Polity being engaged in conflict, such Polity shall not use as a vessel of war any armed vessel which may be under construction within its jurisdiction for any other Polity, or which may have been constructed within its jurisdiction for another Polity and not delivered.

Article X.
   No Capital Ship shall be built by any Signing Polity as replacement tonnage, except for a ship lost to accident or conflict, for a Capital Ship of less than twenty years age.

Article XI.
   Total displacement of Capital Ships for the Wichita Confederation shall not exceed 525,000 tons; for the Empire of the Lion 525,000 tons; for the Empire of the Rising Sun 420,000 tons; for the Theocracy of Panj 315,000 tons; for the Commissariat of Tsarkov 315,000 tons; for Le Troisieme Respublique 262,500 tons; for the Stella Regia de Medeo 262,500 tons; for the Iron League 210,000 tons; for the Caliphate Ottomo 210,000 tons.

Article XII.
   Total displacement of Carriers for the Wichita Confederation shall not exceed 135,000 tons; for the Empire of the Lion 135,000 tons; for the Empire of the Rising Sun 108,000 tons; for the Theocracy of Panj 81,000 tons; for the Commissariat of Tsarkov 81,000 tons; for Le Troisieme Respublique 67,500 tons; for the Stella Regia de Medeo 67,500 tons; for the Iron League 54,000 tons; for the Caliphate Ottomo 54,000 tons.

Article XIII.
   No Capital Ship of less than twenty years age shall be sold, scrapped, broken up or otherwise disposed of without the notification and consent of all Singing Polities.


*Article III was added to allow for several battleships and battlecruisers under construction by various powers to be completed as carriers.

**Article VIII ensured that the (former) Great Kingdom of the Double Eagle, or rather its constituent kingdoms, would be unable to acquire any modern large ships.  Moreso than the Iron League, the Great Kingdom was viewed as the aggressor whose actions had led to The War, and the victors were determined to punish its member states.  Ironically, this enforced weakness led to the Iron League annexing much of the former Great Kingdom's former territory in the run up to the Second Great Inter-Stellar
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: July 17, 2008, 04:45:49 AM »

From the writings of the historian Stefan of Ambrosia, 26 AA:

   The Nine Powers Conference assembled on 22 November 2 AA, on the fifth moon of the superjovian Pacem in the Crossroads system.  Present were delegations from all nine polities capable of starship construction.  After the horrific destruction and slaughter of the First Great Inter-Stellar War, nations sought to impose limits upon the military of their fellows, in the vain hope that future wars could be avoided, or at least kept manageable.  It reality, it managed only to ignite a new arms race of technology instead of mass, and weakened the signatories to the point that the Second Great Interstellar War nearly annihilated all of them.  The terms of the Nine-Power Treaty were agreed to on 6 February 3AA, and announced simultaneously (after a lengthy ratification process) from the signatories' respective capitals on 17 August 4 AA.

   After the Armistice, the Empire of the Lion had the galaxy's largest and most powerful fleet, followed closely by the Wichita Confederation, and more distantly by the Empire of the Rising Sun and the Theocracy of Panj.  All four embarked upon large programs of new battleships.  In 1 AA, the Wichita Confederation had declared an aim to produce a fleet "second to none", and had already laid down five battleships and four battlecruisers.  The Empire of the Rising Sun was at the start of an 8-8 program (eight battleships and eight battlecruisers).  In early 2 AA the Empire of the Lion finalized the design of and ordered four very large battlecruisers with plans for four matching battleships to follow.  The Theocracy of Panj, immense in number of hulls but lacking in large ships, purchased old Lion designs and prepared to build twenty-two battleships & battlecruisers.  This burst of construction kindled fears of a new naval arms race, similar to the Lion-Iron League race preceding The War.

   At the time, the Wichita Confederation's economic power was considerably greater than that of its potential rivals.  Its gross domestic product was approximately three times larger than the Lion Empire's (excluding its minor allies & possessions), six times larger than the Empire of the Rising Sun, and seven times larger than that of the Theocracy of Panj.  While the Wichita Confederation had the wherewithal to outbuild the other powers, its corporate oligarchy meant that domestic political support for such an ambitious program was lacking.  The Lion Empire and Theocracy of Panj were linked by the Leonine-Panjubi Alliance which included mutual defense.  The prospect of a naval limitation treaty offered the Confederation government a chance to ?get on with business? while offering the Rising Sun, Leonine, and Panjubi governments a more favorable balance of power compared to the Wichita Confederation than they could have achieved on the building ways.  The discovery shortly before The War's end of a 'back door' warp line linking outlying Lion & Confederation systems with outlying systems of the Empire of the Rising Sun likely played a large part in their agreement to attend the conference.  Their days of ?splendid isolationism? behind the bulk of the Commissariat of Tsarkov were over.

   In general, the terms of the treaty caused a shift away from large ships with large guns to a greater number of smaller ships with smaller guns, and parasites.  The treaty limited the total tonnage of 'capital ships' (a new designation, for the first time given a precise definition), the maximum tonnage of individual ships, the total tonnage of parasite motherships (given the new term 'carriers'), the maximum size & number of guns of a carrier, the maximum size of gun to be placed on any ship, the building and/or provision of any armed ship to any non-signatory nation, the disposal of armed ships, and the building and/or upgrading of static defenses outside of a nation's most heavily populated systems.

   The overall form of the treaty was a capital ship & parasite displacement ratio of 10:10:8:6:6:5:5:4:4, with the Wichita Confederation & the Empire of the Lion predominant, the Empire of the Rising Sun secondary, and the Theocracy of Panj reduced to parity with the Commissariat of Tsarkov.  The ever fractious neighbours of Le Troisieme Respublique and the Stella Regia de Medeo were evenly matched, and the defeated powers of the Iron League and the Caliphate Ottomo restricted to the smallest fleets of all.  The Commissariat of Tsarkov bitterly resented being restricted to a fleet smaller than that of its neighbour the Empire of the Rising Sun, despite having four times the population and nearly twenty times the total number of populated systems.  Indeed, the massively spread out, thinly-populated Commissariat presented several unique challenges, and at the end was persuaded to sign only upon receipt of several key technological boons and sales of numerous smaller ships ?for internal security purposes?.

   The treaty optimistically sought to restrain the technological arms race that, ironically, it directly inspired by restricting new capital ship construction to that required to replace existing ships (save those lost to accident or conflict) not less than twenty years after construction.  It was felt that this would result in a gradual increase of capability rather than the pre-War tendency to lay down a half-dozen new capital ships with each technological advance.  In practice, existing ships were extensively refit with newer technology whenever governments found their capabilities lacking.  The most notable example being the Confederation's Kansas and Nebraska, which had their engines replaced in 6 AA, their electronics upgraded in 7 AA, their guns replaced in 10 AA, their electronics upgraded again in 11 AA when it was found that their new guns exceeded expectations by a wide margin, their engines replaced again in 12 AA, their shield generators replaced in 14 AA, and were stripped to the keel to have their armour and engines replaced in 17 AA.  Finally, Kansas and Nebraska had their guns, electronics, and shield generators replaced in 22 AA, just in time to be destroyed at the battle of Diamond Valley in December 22 AA.

   Alas, one important area was completely overlooked.  Missile combat was in its infancy in The War, with missiles being large, unreliable, and very inaccurate.  It was felt at the time that a properly handled ship was in no danger from missiles, and as a result no efforts were made to limit the size or number of missile launchers on a ship.  That fact was to have dire implications in the Second Great Inter-Stellar War.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: July 17, 2008, 02:49:33 AM »

From the writings of the historian Stefan of Ambrosia, 4AA:

   Of all the combatants in The War, clearly the Empire of the Rising Sun made out best.  But surely second place belongs to the tiny Theocracy of Panj.  Before The War began, few outside of the Empire of the Lion had heard of the single system polity on its southern border, home of the galaxy's thirty-fourth sentient species.  But battles like Zeguma Beach, Chertoff's Planet, Vimy Ridge & Stein's Folly engraved the combat prowess of the Panj on the hearts & minds of the sentients everywhere.  Perhaps the premier combat troops in the galaxy, the Panjubi resemble the Yeti of human legends ? two meters tall, covered in shaggy fur, and armed with short, sharp claws and massive tusks.

   As formidable a natural warrior as a Panjubi is, it is the training, tactics, and technology of the modern battlefield that renders it supreme.  Encased in full-environmental power armour, toting weapons once reserved for panzers, and small enough (Just!) to fit inside a standard corridor, the Assault Infantry of Panj go through modern planetary defense complexes (and the occasional star ship) like piranha through a fresh carcass ? individually dangerous, in a group utterly lethal.

   Yet perhaps more impressive than the combat ability of the Panjubi ground troops is the transformation undergone by their navy.  The Theocracy of Panj possessed a mere seven ships when it joined The War, and only one of those armed.  Its technology was by far the lowest of any starfaring race, and in some areas behind that of ground-bound nations such as the Barbary Clans and the Tortuga Dominions.

   By Armistice, the Panj fleet was the fourth largest by number of hulls, and responsible for escort duty of nearly two-thirds of all trade within the Empire of the Lion.  Panj ships mounted the latest in sensors & weaponry, courtesy of their Lion allies, and boasted the thickest armour and best speed of any fleet, thanks to their fleet doctrine.  

   The Panj System ? itself a treasure trove of mineral wealth ? links to a dozen more systems containing extensive mineral deposits within four jumps.  The only known access to these systems is though Panj, ensuring that the mineral wealth will remain in the Theocracy's hands.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: July 17, 2008, 02:01:36 AM »

From the writings of the historian Stefan of Ambrosia, 6 AA:

   The War.  To sentient beings of that time there was no need of disambiguation.  To historians of a future age it would be known as The First Great Inter-Stellar War, but back then, a bare six years after the Armistice, it was simply 'The War'.

   No conflict that had come before had prepared anyone for it.  Oh, star nations had clashed and sentient beings had died in a hundred lesser wars, but nothing like the scale of The War.  Nothing had even approached one-tenth the scale of The War.  Planets had died before, and even an entire sentient species*, but The First Great Inter-Stellar War caused, directly or indirectly, the deaths of roughly one-third of the sentient beings in the known galaxy.  One third.

   The War ended not with a bang, but a whimper.  Star nation after star nation, species after species pulled back from conflict, appalled at what had occurred and their part within it.  At last, when the Wichita Confederation begged for a cease-fire and a meeting between the final three combatants, the Empire of the Lion and the Iron League sent representative to the Crossroads system and the fighting slowly stopped.

   In the end, when the Armistice was signed, the borders were much as they had been at the beginning.  The Great Kingdom of the Double Eagle was dissolved, returned to its constituent monarchies and stripped of its fleet.  The Caliphate Ottomo surrendered its captured territory, and all of its foreign-built battleships.  Le Troisieme Respublique, caught by surprise and nearly overrun by the Iron League in The War's initial thrust, demanded massive reparations and was ill-satisfied by the small territorial concessions awarded it.  The Star Kingdom of Medeo, seeking as always to gain the upper hand over her neighbour and eternal rival Le Troisieme Respublique, demanded equal reparations from the (former) Great Kingdom, and was curtly rebuffed.  Despised by both sides as a turncoat opportunist, it was quietly hinted that the Medeans should consider themselves lucky to keep their fleet.  The Iron League, on the verge of economic collapse, was grateful for war's end but incensed by the concessions and reparations she was forced to make.  The Commissariat of Tsarkov, beset by internal troubles and bordered by only three other combatants, had made its separate peace the year before.  The Wichita Confederation, a late entrant to The War and consequently in by far the best shape of any of the combatants, sought only an end to the fighting.  Her ally the Empire of the Lion, exhausted and nearly bankrupt from years of war with her larger neighbours, likewise sought only peace.

   Only the Empire of the Rising Sun ? located far across the stars on the other side of the Commissariat of Tsarkov ? failed to attend the peace talks.  She had sent two-thirds of her fleet to the aid of her allies, and considered herself well rewarded by the flood of trade & technical information she received in return.

   As part of the Armistice, a League of Stars was established in the Crossroads system to handle future territorial disputes.  Embassies were exchanged among all nations to facilitate discussion and diplomacy.  A series of Jump Gates were built, linking all nations' capitals and allowing near-instantaneous communication for the first time.  Trade was encouraged, with the hope that friendships would grow.

   And finally, the Nine Powers Conference was established, bringing together representatives of all the polities with the technology to build star ships.


*The Suinus Scrofula, victims of the crassly named 'Boar War' (19-16 BA) with the Empire of the Lion.