Lord Skimper wrote:Would the Mars-Class be the first of the Writ Large ships? We give credit to the Manty's for starting this Writ Large notion for their ships but it seems it might be a Haven idea just developed by Manticore for the rest of their ship designs.
No. Haven built large because they couldn't match the Manties ton-for-ton due to their inferior tech, so they added more tons. They were also anticipating that they'd be able to capture and/or figure out the Mantie's compensator innovations to keep the class' acceleration competitive, which didn't happen.
Meanwhile, the Manties are building large simply because the minimum tonnage requirements for combat effectiveness have gone up in the new technological and tactical environment they've created. They also already *have* the improved compensators they need to keep accelerations up.
In other words, the Havenites built large in a variant on their attempts to beat Manticore's quality with quantity. They were following the Manties' lead. Manticore, on the other hand, is the one who *has* the quality and who's pushing the pace. They're not following anyone's lead. The two situations are very different, sharing only superficial similarities (kinda like how cars are very dissimilar from airplanes, despite both having wheels).