[Republics] Asari Cancel Fighter Deal

Asari Cancel Fighter Deal

Galea T’Jusa – The Thessian Observer

PORT LAREMA - After a vote on the subject yesterday, the asari republic of Hyetiana has cancelled a planned deal for purchasing fifty new long-range fighters.

In 2185, Kendra Council (Thessia) was contracted for a replacement of the republic’s aging fleet of Skeff Type recon and fighter force. Twelve Rebekha II long range fighters had already been delivered in 2186, but the War interrupted further introduction.

Hyetiana faced extensive destruction during the Reaper attacks, and only four of the new Rebekhas, along with a small variety of older fighter spacecraft and capital ships, survived the hostilities. When Kendra Council announced that they could now deliver the remaining order, a vivid discussion rose asking if the money should be prioritized on rebuilding infrastructure and the research facilities that made the planet such a hub of asari R&D.

A vote overturned the Defense Matrirach’s suggestion to proceed with the deal, and effectively redirected the funds to civil reconstruction.

“I bow to the public vote and I can see the reason behind it”, sais Matriarch Marrina. ”We proposed several options; we also suggested to reduce the order, but the decision was made to cancel it completely under the ‘special circumstances’ bailout clause. Of course, the current state of defense is not as I would like it to be, but given the high serviceability rate of the material at hand, I can assure everybody that Hyetiana is capable of maintaining patrols and full control in our system.”

In a first reaction, Kendra Council accepted the vote and announced their will to enter negotiations for a new contract in the future. Kendra Stock closed with -7% yesterday.

Thank you for your help, Mr Spiza. But I don't think it is necessary to take such weird actions.

Mr. Sandman, you seem to be well travelled person and someone who knows a thing or two about ships.
Some of your assumptions go to far though and some just fall short in the light of other priorities.
I also don't think it is enlightenment that is supposed to happen here. Someone is not buying additional or bigger guns insted of food and shelter. How can someone make such a personal fuss over this? It seems to be something you seem very concerned about.

Do you think, rudeness helps a conversation? It rarely does. It also does not encourge the other to continue, but maybe that was just your intention. It is not an 'argument won by default', but a 'conversation ended by dickery', to stay with that picture.

This is correct. It is noted and can, as the Lady Matriarch stated, be dealt with with the forces at hand.
You can now believe that or not.

Correct as well, but additional to the answer to point one, there sure exists an analysis of the danger in this cluster. Obviously it is not high enough, to raise the priority of immediate further military buildup.

This is a wrong assumption, if you are not suggesting the Lady Matriarch is completely wrong.
Which you can of course but I have confidence in the process of decision finding inside the Republic, as simple as that. This in fact may be the part you can't really grasp. We do trust the community to find the right decision and the we carry it on all our shoulders.

I understand your point here, I am not sharing it though. I believe, the asari concept of smaller local defense forces and larger combined fleets is still the best modus operandi for us. It fits our way of reaching decisions and our community spirit. We do not want to immitate human or turian naval policies, it would not give us the best results. The combination of the different concepts that brings out the most effective force in each species is something the Council is there to address.

No, it's not rude at all.
I don't think this was a problem until the Reapers came along. I am no military expert, far from it but my personal opinion is that it would be wrong to measure every military decision with Reaper standards now. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event in scope and scale, even for asari terms.

In no time all major fleets and planetary defenses will be even better than before the war, until then there will be shortcomings, no way around that.

That's not true. I can't imagine anything copying the scale of the Reaper force and rendering this defenses useless. They steamrolled every other fleet as well, no matter the doctrine, please don't make it sound as if the asari were the only ones. I assume this wasn't your intention though.
We need a new and better ways to combine our forces fast, if need be. That was what turned the tides. No one can prepare for this scale of attack alone.

And thank you stardust for being the only asari thus far to actually acknowledge that I said anything.


The comment on "enlightenment" is more directed at Taleeze going "u don't no much abt sari doctrine dyu", I'm saying that a vague allusion to withheld knowledge does not a convincing argument make and, if she actually wants to prove me wrong, she should share with the class.

The "personal fuss" is more irritation at the point blank refusal of a board member to even discuss the situation or entertain the possibility that they might be wrong, resorting to logical fallacies and self righteous offense to shore up nonexistent arguments.

Frankly, much like my dick, I don't actually care about the core issue. It's the conscious denial of discussion on the topic that irks me.


To which I reply "man up". She's a grown woman on the extranet, if she doesn't want people to doubt her debating skills or relative knowledge in an area she has portrayed herself as knowledgeable in she should make actual points and not try to strawman my own into something ridiculous.


My counterargument to this basically boils down to a disagreement with the effectiveness of an e-democracy in making decisions regarding security. To elaborate: the vast majority of the people weighing in on the decision do not have any real grounding in areas such as colonial defense or aerospace garrisoning. What do they know? That their homes and cities are wrecks. That their world is, essentially, poor and will remain so until their research facilities are rebuilt, repaired, and put to work servicing the other Republics. That is what they live with, that is what they see every day. The integrity and combat effectiveness of their fleet is a distant concern, one not really relevant to day to day life until something goes wrong.

So they vote to deal with the issue right in front of them versus the one that is out of sight and therefore out of mind. And the Defense Matriarch, despite pushing for the deal, defers utterly to the public vote so as to not make waves. And while you say that her approval indicates that it is, in fact, not a pressing concern, actions and realities speak louder than words. If she had thought that it was completely unnecessary she would not have recommended completing the contract; something that, to me at least, seems to point to the fact that she doesn't think that "a small variety of older fighter spacecraft and capital ships" is enough to fully safeguard Hyetiana. But she can't exactly go "y'all be fucked" so she falls into line and supports the group.

This, in my opinion, is emblematic of the main flaw of the asari brand of democracy (and before someone gets all offended, you're not special, every organic system of government is host to its own number of issues). It becomes easy for the citizenship to lose perspective, lose sight of the larger picture and focus in on their own immediate problems.


And I'm saying that it's not, it's really really not. And I know that Taleeze is somewhere over there going "bu-bu-but Reapers were unique" and yes, they where. But to imply that they did not illustrate a number of problems with conventional asari doctrine is willful blindness at best and dangerous idiocy at worst. Decentralization makes organizing and bringing your full power to bear difficult and time consuming. Your emphasis on mobility has little effect on enemies that'll go for the gut and force you to engage them on their terms.

To use a hypothetical scenario of a raid on Hyetiana in which the opposing forces consist of a handful of assault frigates led by a cruiser flagship (about par for the course for the attack parties of more successful pirates and raiders, ie the ones with the balls to mount an operation like this).

1. Intelligence gathering, send in members of your crew (preferably asari) disguised as refugees or travelers in order to identify the specific locations and external defenses of the repositories holding the tech and research. Invest time and credits into ascertaining the strength and routes of patrols in the area as well as the position of comm buoys.

2. Jump in as close to the comm buoys as possible, hit them with an EM burst to mimic interference from solar weather then destroy them, thus buying you a couple hour window in which to operate. Essentially the time it would take for a runner ship to travel to the closest armed republic and return with military support.

3. The asari defenders will use the speed and agility of their ships to their advantage, carving away your flotilla piece by piece in hit and run attacks. So bomb the planet, paying special attention to civilian and refugee centers. If they want to stop you from massacring half their population they'll have to engage you directly. On your terms. Thus stripping them of their main advantage, their mobility, and leveling the playing field.

4. While your battle hardened and experienced flotilla trades shots with the "small variety of older fighter spacecraft and capital ships" that Hyetiana has to field, send landing craft to your predetermined targets (if you're smart you'll direct part of your bombardment to the immediate area, bringing down power and sowing chaos among any defenders), break in and take everything that's not nailed down. Prototypes, schematics, server contents, personnel.

5. Jump away before reinforcements arrive. Sell your loot to the highest bidder and include relay passage as part of your terms.

This is how I would do it. This is how actual pirates do it. And this is what Hyetiana is vulnerable to if you drop the whole "elite" part out of the "elite warbands".

Yes Hyetiana should quake in fear of Pirate Bob and his two or three up-gunned freighters that may or may not tear themselves apart when trying to fire.

I am pretty sure the asari are safe for the time being with thier fighters and the odd capital ship. It isn't like that a skyllian blitz is just about to happen to them and even then, what was the ratio during the blitz? 1 frigate versus 10 retro-fit freighters?
Have to look that up, but I overheard an officer braging that his ship took out more than that and could keep on fighting back when I was working at the Tower.
Yeah it is pretty much hearsay, but if there is a grain of truth in that I think Sandman is exaggerating the danger Hyetiana is in by not investing into defense.

Better than you is the part I think you should look at.

In the end people have forgotten something here:

The same citizens who have voted are the ones whose lives and property are at stake. It is their right and their choice. The consequences - they will deal with them.

I'd trust the reasons behind their decision 10 times more than that made by bureaucrats who make decisions they know will not touch them, and who take care of any interest but that of those whom they're supposed to serve. And yes, they may still be totally wrong.

After all, we had a council and wise mandarins, and they still totally managed to disregard the signs that the squid gods were coming. Who's to say those voters are less wise?

All interesting points, Sandman, but you’re also neglecting that the asari aren’t defending their home worlds alone. Remember, this is Citadel Space, and as a result the asari have the advantage of turian patrol fleets moving through the area.

Granted, this doesn’t remove the issue of a concentrated, “to-the-gut-style” attack, but the issue with what you’re suggesting is that you think that the average pirate has the ability to (a) find all external defenses, (b) locate and destroy all comm buoys around the planet, (c) bank on the lack of a QEC linking the planet to Thessia, and (d) have the required firepower and nerve to create a slaughterfest comparable to the Skyllian Blitz.

(Thanks, by the way, for making me bring up the same point as Schmidt. I’ll never forgive you for this.)

“This is how actual pirates do it” is an excuse only if your average pirate crew has the size, organization and sheer strength required to attack a garden world that supports at some 50-100 million people. Frankly, I don’t think the average fleet working in C-Space has that strength - that sort of strength would have to be bankrolled by a state military...or, say, a very-well-funded PMC.


Palmer, at least try to be a little more elaborate in your arguments, or at least don’t do exactly what Sandman asked Taleeze to stop doing.

I understand, and trust me, the human colonies in the Traverse were a lot less prepared than any of the Asari Republics were, and I hope that God Squids invading from Dark Space is one of those one in a few million years phenomenon that won't happen again.

The core/homeworlds should be pretty well insulated from a lot of problems, but with the fleets having lost so much in the war, their operational capabilities are probably less than half what they were before the war. Even with help from the Geth and Quarians, it will take years or decades to get back to where we were.

Call me paranoid, but I'm worried that someone could capitalize on the damage to the fleets and have a merry old rampage, be it pirates, the next wannabe Cerberus or heaven only knows what.

Oh thank god I thought I was going to have to be talking to the walking separatist caricature.


Point but,

hrm

I don't know if marginalized is precisely the right word but given the Republics's pointed exclusion from the whole turian-krogan-human military pact and lingering political fallout over the Beacon; I would think that it wouldn't be that far of a stretch to say that the asari as a whole have been quietly pushed down a couple notches with regards to priority on at least few lists.

And in any case reliance on a foreign power for something as critical as system wide security hardly breeds healthy political habits one way or the other. Military self sufficiency is critical in the formation and maintenance of a healthy state, in my opinion anyway.


If I might address this in list form?

A. It's less a matter of finding all external defenses as it is of keeping all external defenses occupied I would think. You merely have to render them combat ineffective, not completely eliminate them all. For ships that basically means ensuring that they can't target any assets you've deployed planetside. For ground based defenses that usually means doing your homework/slamming them from outside their effective range. You're not there to take the planet, just seize a very specific set of resources.

B. I can't speak with any authority regarding the Republic in question but it's generally not like much effort's made to conceal them. They trend towards the very expensive and tend to have the majority of their bandwidth packaged up and sold by public telecommunications companies, neither of which lends itself to highly classified locations. So while it's possible that a number of comm buoys would be held in reserve, I think the general strategy is to simply maintain a formidable enough aerospace garrison that someone would have to bring too much firepower to make a blitz assault economically feasible.

C. I'll concede that, although I would like to point out that it's hard to send a message when a spinal round has pancaked your facility. Plus, even in the best of situations, you've only halved the window. Depending on relative capabilities and strategic competency this may still be doable. Riskier certainly but doable. Again, like so many other things in the execution of a raid like this, it would boil down to intelligence gathering. Contacting brokers, scouting out the planet well in advance, etc.

D. The pirates in the Terminus and Abyss who rise to positions of any prominence or notoriety would do and have done things that dwarf the Blitz in terms of bloodshed for the sake of profit. The forum's own Vedevix was, for all his posturing was still, in the grand scheme of things, "small time".


And I will concede that to you, however I would like to point out that (a) they don't have to hold it or even take it, merely breach the defenses (b) a poorly defended planet of millions is really the same as a poorly defended colony of a few hundred thousand in that they're all vulnerable to death by orbital bombardment (c) I would imagine that there are more than a few Terminus entities that would quietly fund such an operation in return for cutting edge Republic tech (d) this all illustrates precisely why protecting such a world is not something to be almost entirely overlooked by the people who are making the decisions.


I'm both impressed and concerned that you still have standards in this regard.

You have a point there. Salarians are dealing with the same issue in that respect (and here, I will say “marginalized,” as, well, hey, krogan), but as a whole asari have been a bit more diplomatic about trying to smooth relations. Of course, a lot of them (see: Taleeze) have been relying on the same hoity-toity nonsense that you’d hope they’d drop after being caught with their pants down about the beacon, but apparently blaming everything on the Matriarchs and maintaining status quo gets them further than bitching about Linron does for us.

I expect that they still have a lot of turian ships patrolling relays and colony worlds, however – enough for even people with Vedevix’s firepower. But you’re right, the asari do need to have some firepower of their own backing them up, which is why (again) more asari need to comment in here.

Rebutting in the same list form as before:

A. You have a point there.

B. I suppose you’re right, and you’ve caught me off guard – I’m thinking in terms of salarian colonies, most of which have a few of those, er, “hidden away,” for lack of a better phrase. Again, though, salarian, not asari – I have no idea what sort of backup they’d have for something like that.

C. The loss of a QEC is a warning in and of itself, as it means something catastrophic to the point of, well, “pancaking a facility” is occurring on the colony in question. At the very minimum, a QEC going out in a non-broken relay region would scare up a fleet to find out what’s going on.

D. This also addresses Point C in your next list of comments, but remember, Sandman, we’re all still trying to rebuild. Nobody can afford, much less wants to start a war between the Terminus and C-Space. Trying for Skyllian Blitz Mk. II in the heart of C-Space would force one – and that would be a lose-lose situation for everyone, Terminus warlords included.


People learn in different ways. Some people by reading, some by sound, some by repetition, some by percussion.

Palmer seems to learn best through repetitive percussion.

This does not take into account that asari do not have such a view on life. This is a totally human perspective, given the shorter lifespan of your species. The fact that we have to live with consequences personally even five or six hundred years from now makes some decisions and their fallout even more relevant.
So, the shortsightedness that you claim to see here is just a completely false assumption. The article doesn't mention how long this process of decision finding has taken but I actually assume that the Matriarch herself has called for this vote finally.
In this case I think the decision was reached in a way of systemic consensing, the Matrirach says there were alternatives presented and discussed. (you seem to be a person who enjoys discussion but you'd hate our way of doing it)

You make it sound as if Hyetiana does nothing at all to bolster defenses. But I really don't think that is the case. I guess, the immediate costs for the fighters were the main issue. Buy shelter, food, rebuild infrastructure and erect a couple of dozen AA towers compared to buy this one system alone.
For a Republic suffering on all ends I would take the same decision, raise the overall level of the Republic to a better standard first. It helps the cause in the long run more. Better living conditions, a more stable population, better economy, more money to buy even better ships much sooner.

If they spend it right now on the fighters, they have just that and have to wait a much longer time until their economy can afford further buildup of military.
The assessment of the danger in this region obviously showed that the risk they take is worth it.

One more thing:
This is downright offensive against the voters as these are the asari that bled for their homeworld and fought for it in the war.
Do you really think they have not thought about the consequences, have not weighed the risks and opportunities? The funny fact is, that those who have no expertise listen to those that have and that we in general take the time to listen to many angles. The time this takes unsettles humans often - salarians not so much, funny enough.
You seem to argue only in terms of "buy big guns, buy more guns, buy them NOW!" - I think you are not seeing that there is more to life than this. There are various ways to reach the goal, and Hyetiana is just not taking a straight line. Come back and we can discuss the effect of this decision in a couple hundred years... oh, you can't? Well, the voters have to face that each time.

Indeed I would be surprised if only two years after the most devastating war in recorded history the asari citizens had safety as a distant concern.
About the priority lists of patrols, I believe that the asari worlds are still the prime exporters of eezo. That will get you goodwill anywhere.
At the end of the day it's all about costs. As Mr Aleksander pointed out it is possible for a large terminus force to successfully attack this planet, even if she's in the core. Now while it is possible, it is close to likely? Maybe with months of planning they could persuade enough terminus governments to mount such an operation. It would imply of course bypassing the STG, the specters, and the other terminus governments who do NOT want retaliations from C-Space. With that done assuming the attack would be successful, what would happen? In this scenario the attackers would have air superiority, but what would they gain by flattening a few cities? It wouldn't take their defenders out completely, as the reaper resistance showed us (and they were much more powerful). And as decentralized as the asari worlds are, they still wouldn't have much time before reinforcement.
No attacking core planets directly is barely feasible, and probably not cost effective. Especially compared to attacking eezo ships, which is the true problem here.
But the asari people determined that housing and infrastructure was more important for now than more defense against the pirates. I can understand that choice.

Fair enough and frankly you've basically said everything I was going to say except with less "corporatese" and a bit more eloquence.

Just a bit mind you.


Thank you.


Point taken (and I am not either to be perfectly honest) but I doubt that they operate on a similar mentality as salarians. Generally I've always had the impression that the Unions predicate defense and security on the notion that the worst will come to worst and view preparation for said inevitability as paramount. Hence the contingencies within redundancies within failsafes which are the hallmark of salarian strategic thinking.

Asari, in my personal opinion at least, tend to rely upon diplomacy and long-term political maneuvering to prevent things from ever progressing to that point and if (in the absolutely worst case scenario) they do they have their elite warbands, their flotillas, and their huntresses to carve apart the enemy. They serve as their first and last line of physical defense and, generally, that's all they need.


True but you've still bought yourself an hour or two, mobilizing a fleet to investigate/intervene would require at least a degree of deliberation and discussion before action is ever taken. That's time you have to work with.


And I don't disagree with you, with the caveat that that applies to the here and now. The current state of affairs can't and won't persist indefinitely and those that landed on their feet and have recovered the fastest can and would pose a threat to those that have not. Or, at least, a probable enough threat that a world like Hyetiana can't reasonably afford to continue the trend they're on now and simply rely on the rest of the Republics and their allies to pick up the slack.


Fairly certain that it also qualifies as charity work by this point.

Probably tax deductible too.


D- REVISE AND RESUBMIT
I've never found the whole "it's just a human perspective" argument to hold much water really. If the asari were the majority race in the galaxy possibly but, they're not, and the rest of galactic society doesn't base their timetables around the asari view on life. Not the turians, not the salarians, not the batarians.

Certainly not the pirates and similar elements in the Terminus and Abyss.

Additionally your theory about the long reaching effects of such decisions impressing a certain degree of gravity among the voters really doesn't do much to undermine my position nor support yours. If anything it actually bolsters mine a bit. Not everyone plays the extreme long game my dear. And simply because you'll still be around to experience any fuckups of current policy up close and personal isn't a particularly strong basis upon which to state that you will unequivocally make the correct decision every time. It's a justification, a fact taken to support an existing system of belief.


Absence of proof is not proof of absence but neither is it confirmation of existence; to assume otherwise is lazy debating that quashes discussion more than a few caustic remarks ever will. Furthermore the resources were explicitly devoted to civilian reconstruction. Which would preclude the kind of lesser defense buildup you're talking about.


Again not everyone plays the extreme long game, especially not aggressors whose probability of success is contingent upon your immediate vulnerability. Your future prosperity is a rather moot point if you can't defend yourselves now.


My apologies, I was not aware that surrendering under threat of sustained orbital bombardment made one an expert on naval tactics.

So, out of curiosity, does holding someone at gunpoint automatically make them an expert on firearms?

All those mugging victims will be so overjoyed.


Not in this case apparently.


If that is literally all you got out of what I said then I think this is less a case of particularly intense confirmation bias and more pathological overconfidence.


Oh the lifespan jab, I was wondering when you were going to get desperate enough to fumble for that last little holdout. "You won't live as long as us, clearly you can't grasp the complexities of our democratic process".

3/10 and that's out of pity.

Here's a question for you my dear, I have done in a tenth of your lifespan what you haven't been able to equal in two hundred plus years of existence and probably never will.

What does that say about you?


...Assuming that you are not, in fact, asking ironically and just failed to actually read my last post before dashing off your reply I would then say that, again, the point of any raid is not to take and hold the planet but rather to seize a specific set of targets; this is why it's call a "raid" and not an "invasion".

The planet is a hub of R&D for the entirety of the Republics.

Put two and two together.

Edit: On a slightly cruder note, holy shit that was entirely too long.

The lifespan difference is a fact and not a jab. Ignoring this as source of difference in the way of reaching decisions and the outcome itself, but seeing it as a personal insult is telling.

Why should I want to? That actually made me laugh a bit.

I don't think anyone here imagined an actual invasion scenario. But even plunder takes time. Stealing a significant enough prize from the asari R&D labs via brute force would be quite the undertaking. It's not like stealing a freshly discovered beacon on Eden Prime. The labs that do the important stuff on asari core worlds are extremely well defended and can repel invaders for quite a while before giving their secrets. How long before the allied fleets get their act together and intervene? Not to mention the local reinforcement coming from the whole planet.
And then, even if the invaders manage to get the goods against all odds, won't they just end up facing a huge fleet between them and the relay?

Again, I'm not saying nobody could survive all that. Just that it is understandable that the asari would consider this threat remote enough to focus on more immediate problems.