message 0132

• The technology levels of the different races
• Does Union use Carriers/Riders?
• Comparison between normal and Azi ship crews/abilities of Azi in general

>Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 19:45:04 -0500
>From: "Phil G. Fraering" <pgf@srl.cacs.usl.edu>
>Subject: cherryhlist


I'd like to put in my $ .02 about the relative tech levels in
the books:

1. It seems to me that other than the azi, Union isn't that far
ahead, if it's ahead at all.

Keep in mind, Union, thanks to the azi, seem to have a lot more
resources to play around with than Earth or the Alliance. The 
ECS fleet has been fighting for years, with no resources/resupply/
recruits except what they can steal/shanghai.

All through _DS_ Union seems to be saturating the fleet with numbers.
_And_ there's one point where the fleet could have struck back and
taken out a lot of Union ships, except for the messages from the
company people calling off the attack.

2. It seems to take a lot more training to operate an ECS carrier
smoothly than you could probably get from Azi (except for the really
specialized ones, which you don't have that many of).

3. All sides seem to understand the physics of Jump drive equally
well; remember that Union had tried cloning the inventor, but she
never produced anything.

4. Noone mentions riderships on Union vessels. Multi-ship operations
seem to be inherently harder than large single vessels. A comparison would
be between the Enterprise (i.e. the aircraft carrier) and a modern
destroyer. Sure the destroyer's newer, but from an operations standpoint
the Enterprise represents something much harder to operate, and ultimately
much more powerful.

Phil