WTH is this argument about? Semantics?
One of the things that puzzles me about all this issue is that most criticisms about the idea of the BRs comes from the single argument of the specific wording of the book (so, as you say, sematics, and, as said, quite weak, IMHO, as the word can well be used in a more generic way). No logics or canon (aside MgT, I’ll talk about latter) reasoning has been given.
The main setting problems thus far told are (answers are my POV):
Why should the Darrians build warships (perceived thread)?
I think we agreed the Darrians were aware they might be enemies in space, though they knew little (if at all) about their status, and as such they could have built it. No matter how far were assumed those dangers to be, the time needed to build those ships might have made it wise to build them beforehand.
Which size of ships would they build?
Most opinions here seem to agree in that no Battleships, but more in the Destroyer/Cruiser range, as they could be enough for the preceived threads and not to resource demanding.
Which kind of ships?
I guess there’s less agreement here, and, leaving aside exact books wording, IMHO their objective would mostly be defensive, with some exploration ships (probably armed too). Asper defensive fleet, I guess we mostly agree SDBs/Monitors (with some tenders(ump frames to move them, mostly if you think Darrian was the only world able to build them at this time ,the rest of the colonies being too young) would have been built, though as you need more of them than cruisers if you have to defend multiple planets, some CruDrons would also be logical
Also some jump capable ships o nthe destroyer/light Cruiser range would be logical to build for medium/long range exploration, and they were probably armed due to the perceived threats explained above.
How did they end up mothballed in the Oort Cloud?
Here’s one of my main points (and one of the more controversial ones). One of my points is that no fleet mothballs state of the art ships unless they are not needed (e.g. a demobilization after a war) . This not being clearly the case, I rule out the fact those ships were mothballed before the Maghiz.
When the Maghiz stuck, the Darrians tried to perform prevention /relief operations in most their colonies.
Most Colonies, warned In advance, took any measures they could, and I guess this means even evacuate as many population as they could. In this scenario, the idea of having about a score of state of the art jump-capable ships sitting in a mothball yard collecting dust is quite hard to swallow to me, as I guess they put every jump capable sip to duty, even obsolete ones.
OTOH, any SDB/Monitor (some of them might survive, protected by being in deep sea or Asteroids as deep reserve ,as is standard practice according most sources) cold be seen as a waste of resources, as they need personnel and maintenance resources better put to other uses, so the fact some might be mothballed for a time makes more sense to me (the fact they were so in the Oort cloud makes quite less sense, but that’s one of the “known facts”, unless a misinformation to hide their true location, maybe because there are other valuable things at the same place). The fact a handful jump ships (maybe their tenders/jump carriers, maybe of little other use if they were too specific designs) were mothballed with them is also acceptable to me)
And this is my main argument: state of the art jump capable ships in the cruiser range would not have been ignored by Maghiz era Darrians, as they were too valuable for prevention/relief duties to be neither mothballed nor forgotten about (though some might be assumed destroyed, but, unless too damaged, they would have ended up reporting for duty, mostly if they were at Darrian system itself). Even when the Darrians decided to give up, the few remaining jump capable ships were not ignored, but each planet received some and they where mothballed there.
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So, can anyone discuss those reasons instead of semantics?
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