cthia wrote:JeffEngel wrote:They do. Ancient, decrepit ones. And either no provision for crewing them, or no realistic one. So, if you wanted to change the scenario to include them, make it happen four years down the road, with the vast majority of the force having even worse missile defenses.
There's no way we can even consider operational security holding in that case, either.
Well why the hell would the SLN want to keep so many ancient, decrepit ships? I would venture that keeping so many ships mothballed has to cost a pretty credit, if I knew what the hell mothballed entails.
You take out anything that will go bad, or prep it so it won't; you let out the air and such; you let vacuum keep it fresh. Indefinite storage. Virtually no upkeep. The only cost is declining to send it to the breakers, and if you need it again later, pumping air and such back in, putting the bits that need putting back, back, refitting it to the standards of modern combat (or some approximation thereto), and away you go.
The SLN has them in case they need them. Keeping them working would cost money the SLN does not have. Keeping them floating in space does not - the SLN has space, it's free and available in disgusting, terrifying quantity. It is notoriously big. (It has us outnumbered. It scares me!)
In addition to the far-fetched notion of actually needing the Reserve, it makes the theoretical looming threat value of the SLN even larger. Mess with them, even if you somehow get through hundreds of active wallers, there are thousands more that just need to be brushed off, already built.
What exactly is a mothballed ship? Are they kept in slips? Well that's a huge ship yard for moths. But really, I've always wondered how a mothballed ship is kept. Anchored in space, totally shut down? There's maintenance and upkeep in the anchoring facilities. And costs.
No slips. Space. No anchors. They can just orbit whatever is convenient. I suppose someone may have to replace a warning buoy lest they be navigational hazards, but then again - space, big. You don't run into stuff in it accidentally. Even the Reserve isn't THAT large. Heck, the nav buoy could be a total PR thing: "Yes, we worry that people may careen into the Reserve if we don't post signs. Yes, we know space is big. Yes, really big. And knowing that, we still want to post signs...."
They are, in some seriousness, still likely near some working defensive installation to prevent theft and such, at least if you haven't bribed someone first.
