OKay...before the caffeine collapse hits me (been a loooong night at work!): The RC had three devils to chase:
A) the Guild (ongoing problem, tough to nail down, no planet nearby to "nail them" with a clean strike, selling AP ammo and weapons to Teddy's and Totalitarians alike to blow big mucking holes in their Lt battledressed troops. we won't even go into the RC losing the PR war on the "Star-Viking" propaganda campaign (That phrase was worth a promotion to the Guild Higher seats!)
B) The Vampire Hwy. Now the Marathon Victrix was seized in late 1201, but word gets back to RC in early 1202(canon/CINET-Challenge). Then, two months later (late March 1202), a Midu Agashaam DD bombards Nike Nimbus, clobbers the RCS Eos Takes a few hits, and safely jumps away. Nilsen's GDW comes out with Vampire Fleets. Guess where we're headed next??? Promise/Promise-Diaspora, the Vampire Captal of the Khulam-Promise Main/ the AI-Great Barrier reef to that Pie in the Sky By and By plan to sweep the Diaspora Sector. Solee? Lost crewmen? Put em on the back burner. 30,000 civvies just got toasted in the "SAFE space of the RC". Real Politik dictates that they'd go after the Vamps. Toss in the "offstage contact with Sufren" (How else did the Mary Elise crew get back? Sufren returned them. The RC then sent the RCS Belladonna (IMTU) to sufren to secure the ship back, offer Sufren trade (and machinery to go from C-class to A-class ( a wee bit of HIver boondoggling there)! Ran it as an adventure. Crew got back with SNAKE Anti Virus weapon by September 2nd 1202.(Left 01 April 1202, appropriate dontchya think?) Launched attack on Promise in October 1202. Swept the Main and adjacent systems. The RC was then committed to 6 months of getting Promise in shape to repel whatever came down the "Hwy" afterwards, and some of the Vamps captured on Promise could be made into a nascent Navy. And then word of alliance with Sandman hits the RC...!
C) Solee, who has a population almost the size of Oriflamme(700 million vs 800 million), an Imperial Naval Base (with whatever the Solomani upgraded the TL-10 facility to since 1117 occupation (13 years is 3 terms plus!), and a comparable Tech level (TL-9). With some Trillion Credit Sqdn numbers for prewar, fudged a wee for Solomani Occupation fleet, I figured a max of some 58-60 Large warships, and triple that in small ships(194 smaller hulls).
Thats one hell of an orbital spare parts yard to work from, if you ask me
Now PoT sez they have 6 Large (9000men/ 1 per 1500) and 20 (10,000/ 1 per 500) small Jump-operational as of 001-1201. Thats 19,000 personnel been in jump space for (since their recovery in 1196)5-6 years. The RC has been Jump spaced since 1192, a 4 year experience gap
in their favor.
Where PoT "agrees" with me: do the math figuring a 1% Military for Solee as per Wilds Militaries (gets you 7 million personnel without ruining the budget). Space Forces: C-class port .06% x .5 (for TL-9-10)x .25 (UPP pop8). I got 52,500 personnel--or 17 Major ships, 53 small ones.
Then I looked again: Close to one third are Jump capable.Hm sez I, what are the remaining 11/33? Where are they?
Former Jump capbable ships now used as Monitors, and SDBs, with STL lighters,and a few Jump shuttles (solee does lie on a J-1 main, btw).
PoT also states militaries can be upwards to 25% of base population. Hmmm sez I, Solee wants an "empire". The empress was coronated 14 Jan 1192;the C-class port & Navy base restored (Meaning it was D-class prior, and the Jump fleet was 3 Majors/ 9-10 smaller ships), and this "new breakthrough" clearing Virus go down in 1196. Now if I was in a conquering bent, wouldn't I increase the size of my military to accomodate these wishes of grandeur? ANd the infrastructure to maintain them (Why else go to C-class starshipyard?! why else cozen up to Kmak with her C-class orbital port?!). In 1198, attacked on behalf of two TEDs on Hindahl, 1199, on Marcena. same strategy. Bogs down, not enough men. Local quagmires.
Below was my "solution" to those two worlds...
http://www.downport.com/bard/bard/peri/peri1003.html
IN 5-6 years time, SOlee mobilizes and amasses up to 25% of her manpower ( I settled for 10% myself) of 70 Million total armed forces personnel
IN Jayna subsector, they had been backed up by two High pop worlds GALINES ( a totalitarian regime of Megacorp remnants {its a crime to be unemployed there!} and CZERNIAK (MTU version of a successful Psionic coup at the collapse running the world, keeping the status quo, steering the masses through the media, and allowing the nonconformists to emigrate to economically tied "colonies" (sort of like RENJ does). They'd retaken Depot in 1199. A Lotta TL-9-11 ships remained in the "mothball fleet". Manpower was needed to get em running, and manned! (Also justifying the military build up).
Single TED run worlds were "co-opted" by gunboat diplomacy and trade (GALINES had no warfleet--she had merchant ships out the wazoo, by contrast; CZERNIAK's "warships" were all SDBs and planetoid hull monitors. Being the TL-11 giant, she felt she needed her forces for defense only. ANd since the megacorps of GALINES mirror those on CZERNIAK, they hold more stock shares with 18billion citizens versus the 2 billion of GALINES, and dominate the markets that way too.)
"Knock-Knock" rule under the Pax Solee, or be replaced by one who will."--thats a simplistic way of saying it, but there were one ruler-TEDs on Kata,Yerhen, and a few other places made to "behave" from 1198-1201.
Between 1203 and 1204 the borders between them narrow. A war economy calls for war. Victories make any sacrifices by the people worth while. rimwards into Shenk they go. Target: Yontez, Shenk, Janie, Clallum. Isolate the pro-RC Na state of Mueller economically, and astrographically. Ironically it is the Guild's sale of TL-8 weaponry to the TL-6 Psion-hating TEDs of Yontez that sparks the war off. Solee swoops in, levels the playing field, Kicks some orbiting RCES butt, frames them for some of the death and destruction, hangs the Guild TEds, restores order, begins nuke dampening "hot sites", and sets up a prefab SDB base.They snag up 4 Guild ships and two RCES ones in the bag. 6 weeks later word gets back to RC, and they declare war FORMALLY on Solee 14 Jan 1204, in response to Mueller's declaration in December 1203 (Abas' attempted counter-coup fails, thanks to PC's actions).
The Guild, in Shenk and Thoezennt, is through. Its bug out time back to Diaspora, or call yourself a Free Trader< and shack up with the RC.
Whew. Time to crash. caffeine's ebbing now.