Bases in the Gateway Domain

[BetterThanLife]

I was going through the Gateway Maps, particularily Ley sector and noticed, compared to other canon sectors that Ley Sector has virtually no Scout Bases. Now the Spinward Marches has about 75 Scout Bases. Now a more settled region, Vland, has about 125. The Solomani Rim only has, about 19, though that may be because the area Rimward is well explored and NavInt is responsible for keeping things on the other side of the border catalogued. Ley Sector only has 14. (And one of the Way Stations is not on the X-Boat route for some reason.) This is a relatively long settled border region, without a major power near the border. One would think it would have at least as many Scout bases as the Spinward Marches, yet it doesn't have as many as the Solomani Rim. Weird.

Comparatively it also has no where near enough Naval bases for a border region, yet it has a Depot. Again, weird.

Any ideas as to why this might be so?

 

[Crashlogic]

A plausible explanation is that the area outside the imperium in the gateway region is not so much unexplored as it is balkanized-the gateway sector contains a plethora of poket empires, none of which is powerful enough to stand up to direct imperial action. thus the scount presence would be lower because there are fewer unknown worlds. One might expect, as I do IMTU, that the Iperial diplomatic and intelligence services are far more active in Gateway than they are in say the spinward marches.

Because there is no major power bear the region, there is not a need for a large naval presence, a pair of superdreadnaughts and thier escorts is probabley enough to bring any threatening system into line.

Another consideration may be that the area is just to remote to be the focus of much in the way of imperial resources.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I thought about that but the Vland Sector has as many Scout Bases as the Spinward Marches. (well roughly) The only thing anywhere near there is heavily balkanized Vargr. The Scout Service has almost always been explained, among other things as one of the Primary Intelligence Arms of the Imperium. Having Balkanized neighbors is more reason to have Scouts not less. Especially with as sparse as the Naval Bases are in comparison to other Imperial locations. Less military requires more Intelligence so your Military can be where it is needed. (For a good historical reference for how that works take a look at the Battle of Britain, where intelligence (and that includes radar providing real time information on the Luftwaffe numbers, location, vectors and thus probable axis of attack) provided the key to a vastly outnumbered force standing up to a numerical superior force and actually winning the battle.

 

[Crashlogic]

Well the vargr are very different from the pocket empires of the gateway region. The scounts do have an important intelligence fucntion, but one does not put a scout bases on worlds belonging to other multi-system states. I would imagine covert opeerations, and not overt, dominate teh intelligence scheme for gateway.

The scouts exploration fucntions are minimally useful in gateway, since most of it is settled. putting in lots of scout bases just means your enemies know where to monitor.

The lack of scount bases does not, and should not, imply a lack of intelligence gatehring capability.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Crashlogic:
Well the vargr are very different from the pocket empires of the gateway region. The scounts do have an important intelligence fucntion, but one does not put a scout bases on worlds belonging to other multi-system states. I would imagine covert opeerations, and not overt, dominate teh intelligence scheme for gateway.

The scouts exploration fucntions are minimally useful in gateway, since most of it is settled. putting in lots of scout bases just means your enemies know where to monitor.

The lack of scount bases does not, and should not, imply a lack of intelligence gatehring capability.

Actually I was looking for bases within Ley Sector, not the Domain as a whole. Though I would think there would be a few outside the Imperial Borders as well. And just because it is settled, or even long settled, remember that communication is at the speed of ship so there would probably actually be some exploration going on. (In fact the majority of QASAR class Scout Cruisers are employed in Gateway Domain at least according to that EA.)

 

[stofsk]

Perhaps there aren't as many Scout bases in Ley Sector because that Sector has some economic difficulties? Also, during that time the Solomani were making noise south of the border, so to speak, so Imperial resources may have been spent on a different Domain.