[gurps] Sub Trek

[Classified TS/BBR]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Onno Meyer" <Onno.Meyer at gmx.de>
To: "The GURPSnet mailing list" <gurpsnet-l at sjgames.com>
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 9:00 AM
Subject: [gurps] Sub Trek


>I don't have all of SeaQuest, and if I had it I probably wouldn't have
> the time to watch them for clues, but with the Marauder Suit nearing
> completion I started to think about what I could recall.
>
[snip]
>
> But what about Earth? If the UEO had the resources for one ship
> the size of the SeaQuest, why couldn't they cover the oceans with
> specialized vessels?
>
> Of course there is pretty much conflict. Perhaps the UEO got tired
> of detaching warships to cover their unarmed craft, and turned to
> armed merchantmen/armed research cruisers instead.
>
The UEO didn't build it, the USN did, as a Combat vessel, it was converted 
to a multi-role vessel towards the end of construction when it was decided 
to give it to the UEO.

> How realistic is the assumption that the oceans overtake the land
> area in importance, anyway?
>
That didn't actually get shown per se until the 3rd season, which was 
essentially a completely different, more cyberpunk show, before that the UEO 
is concievably only shown as hugely powerful because of the Aquatic focus of 
the show. In season 3 the Oceans are more important because some Lunatic 
(the seaons Big Bad Ugly) had developed a process for liquefying landmasses 
for resource extraction, by shooting them with Torpedos... & had already hit 
a fair percentage of the above water targets.

> And disregarding the stated political background, could a combined
> transport/combat/research craft find a niche in a corporate-state
> cyberpunk world? In that case, it is not really a warship, just armed
> for self-defense.
>
Essentially true. It's gunboat diplomacy.
[snip]