I have a few further points to make, including a plausible and dare I say it, canny reason for the railgun faction to put forward a motion to modestly increase the tonnage of the proposed command cruiser so that the particle lances can be fitted. However it is getting late and I want to make sure that at least these points can be seen well before the next update, so I will post what I have now and come back to it later.
I wanted to make sure I did, in fact, get back to those additional points.
Firstly I just wanted to go over some differences between the positions of the two factions. The differences come in three categories, namely consequences, scope and what they are willing to give up to avoid the consequences of failing to achieve the factions goals. I have no doubt that there are members of both sides that hold views far more polarized and extreme then what I suggest here but will, unless I missed the mark, take their ques from their factions moderates.
As I stated in my last post the railgun factions goal, as I see it, is to prevent particle lances from supplanting railguns as the navy's main weapon. In their mind, the consequences of failure would be nothing less than the doom of the Legion. The scope of their goal is quite large and could be said to be as large as the Legion navy as a whole. Given what they perceive the consequences to be and how how large the scope of their goal is, they would likely to be willing to give up quite a lot in order to guarantee what they see as the survival of the Legion, although naturally they would prefer to give up as little as possible.
By contrast, the particle lance faction would see the consequences for the failure of their faction as large but not nearly as dire. From their perspective, if particle lances were withdrawn from naval service, the Legion would still endure and continue claiming ultimate victory in any future war but that doing so might be far more costly, both in terms of lost hulls and lost personnel, without the ability to conduct long range gunnery. The scope of their goals are comparatively small, simply that particle lances continue to be a tool in the Legions arsenal and that they be allowed to continue developing the technology, designs and doctrine to make them more effective. For the particle lance faction the consequences of failure are still quite large but because the scope of their goals are comparatively small they would willing to give up far less, if anything at all. They simply have less to give up to begin with.
The railgun faction likely sees the adoption of a railgun armed heavy cruiser as the best way to ensure that railguns continue to be the navy's main weapon system for decades to come, but have also come to the conclusion that confirming that adoption during this conference is unlikely at best and impossible at worst. They still believe that they can make progress however and that, in order to do so they will have to make some sort of concession. This is why the broad support enjoyed by the command cruiser concept is so vital. The railgun faction would have an incentive to try to leverage the one thing that both factions agree on, that a large combat ship is the way forward, to get the particle lance faction to join them in supporting the command cruiser concept on the condition that it be armed. The incentive is that, if it is built and armed, it can be a sacrificial lamb. From the perspective of the railgun faction, the creation of a large combat ship armed with railguns is important, but insisting on arming this command cruiser with them might actually hurt their position more than it would help as it might make a future push for a particle lance armed ship more likely to succeed. If instead they allow or even support arming the command cruiser with particle lances they might be able to get everything they want. Doing so would generate a huge amount of political capital, it would make them seem magnanimous, bi-partison and to be the side of unity. Because of how limited the production run would be, combined with the main purpose of the command cruiser being second line in nature anyway, allowing it to be armed with particle lances would be a concession of the smallest order but one that the particle lance faction might scramble to get a hold of.
The above paragraph is something I feel confident could be worked out by an up and coming junior officer on the staff of one of the pro-railgun Admirals during the lunch break. Such posts have a tendency to be filled by promising and brilliant officers who are not senior enough to be widely known about or fully appreciated. Once these observations are brought to their superiors however, a game plan might emerge like this.
If we say that we would support the command cruiser on the condition that it be armed, the particle lance faction would likely back it.
If we allow it to be armed with particle lances, we lose almost nothing but are then in a position to make demands that will likely be agreed to.
We then acknowledge that it would be too difficult to fit the armament into a 20kt hull and so motion that the design be afforded an additional 2kt to make room for them.
By doing this, our demands go from being likely agreed to, to uncontestable and solidifies our influence over future doctrine.
At this point they could go nuts. That the next large combat ship would be armed with railguns would be a given. They could argue that since a particle lance armed ship would be a guaranteed part of every fleet, additional beam frigate squadrons are less necessary and should be de-prioritized. Even if they can't get that fully agreed to, they still might be able to get the assembly to agree to some sort of limit on the number of particle lance armed ships as a percentage of the navy's total hulls or tonnage. Given how conciliatory they would appear for backing a particle lance armed command cruiser they would have the political equivalent of a blank check. Even if someone from the particle lance faction worked all this out on the fly, I still think they would agree to it given that the aims and scope of the goals of the two factions are not the same as each other. In this scenario, not only does everyone get what they want, but they all get to feel like they are the ones who came out ahead.
All that being said these are just my musings and I am sure there is plenty about the situation that I don't know. Whether some or any of these things come to pass, I am supper excited to see what the next update brings!
Anyway, this post got stupidly long. I think it is also apparent at this point that I might be a bit over invested in this timeline, given how much time I am spending thinking and writing about it. It just goes to show you how good a job you are doing Nuclearslurpee!
Long live the Duranium Legion!
