Hidden supply caches for the Taurian Concordat

[Korzon77]

You know, I was thinking about this, possibly for a fanfic, but the TC had a massive industrial machine-- and even at the end of the war, they still had most of it, since it was inside the cluster. 
Equally, they had several years to know that they were going to lose. No way around it.  What types of caches might they have established, especially when you consider that there is no FTL tracking in Btech.  Hidden worlds a'la the blakists? Caches of equipment and such just put into interstaller space or the oort cloud of a convenient system?

[Shadow_Wraith]

In a hollowed out asteroid that they turned into a deep space station. They could have had their own data core that held the know how to build warships/jumpships, fusion engines and such.   And have a small factory that can build anything as long it has resources.   

[idea weenie]

A data core wrapped (from the inside out) with layers of successively lower technology.

So on the outside you would have a basic instruction set on how to build lenses (plus other basic agricultural/medical data).  The next layer (written in small print) contains the instructions for microscopes/microfiche.  The next layer (written on microfiche) contains instructions for how to build basic computers and rough character recognition.  The next layer contains data written on microfiche that can be read by the computer for basic CD technology.  The next layer contains data CDs to help read the next layer of memory technology, etc.

Each layer is designed to advance the local technology base to not just uplift the local infrastructure, but also be able to understand the next layer in.  The technologies would be designed for long-lasting (a century or more if necessary) so even if it drifted around for a while, anyone that found it would be able to use it.

Of course, the above would be what you would find on a ground-based cache.  A space-based cache would be able to skip a few steps since you likely have some advanced technology because you are in space.


For a space based factory, I would instead see a long-duration data core that explains how to build things, and a multi-capable machine tool that lets you build the tools to build other things.  Lubricants would be drained from it, the lubrication system can use a variety of liquids, and the pressure hoses on it would be low-pressure so you don't need quality materials to replace them.  It would be very expensive, very slow, but it would be a key to rebuilding a technology base.

[Korzon77]

I don't know if the Data core would be an idea-- teh technological regression was a factor of the Succession wars, not the reunification war-- if anything, technology was going up. I could see a lot of stuff on cutting edge material, things that the Taurians would assume might be made illegal/suppressed bythe star league, but a lot of the common stuff? They'd assume it would still be around.
Which would be very interesting given that our people who find it might be confronted with lots of information on how to build cutting edge (for the Reunification War) stuff, that doesn't include some vital points because at the time it was common knowledge.

[wanderer25]

  I think, the TC's inhability to build warship isent do to lack of knowledge but rather infrastructure. Curtesy of the SLDF and subsequent occupation.

 Aside from a few border skirmishes and pirate raids the TC has gone pretty much untouched by the sucession wars. Its core worlds have been left intact!

 Unless Comstar  managed to get at every computer core, university physical librairies and into the home of every former student/engineers to get at their textbooks, the knowledges is still  around somewhere.

 I always tought a more fitting state secret for the TC  instead of an old Corvette
would have been a small commercial shipyard overlooked/tolerated by the Star League.

  I could see it churming out a single Merchant class every year or two, which would explain how  the TC managed to maintain its colonization efforts.

  The low output would be due to the other slips/dock being used to maintain what jumpships the realms already has (military and commmercial). 

 If the OA can make Jumpship components, why couldnt the TC?

 



 

[Deadborder]

The TC tried this. It was what became the Alexandrite world and it worked out fantastically for all involved

[Korzon77]

I pretty much ignore a lot of ISP3.  The problem is that the focus on the Btech universe is on the Clans and IS, and for that reason, anyone else has to be artificially knocked down no matter how much it flies in the face of logic.  The Periphery, in all honesty, should be home to more advanced states then the IS, for the simple reason that it missed out on the Succession wars.

[Deadborder]

Not really. Smaller populations, isolation, less access to resources, less ability to share knowledge and above all else, less need to directly compete or respond to military theats would tend to stifle or at the very least reduce the need for technological development.

All of the key technological developments of the BTU have come from large nations with large populations, plenty of resources and hostile neighbors that give them an incentive towards development

[Korzon77]

Except the problem is that the Taurians, who were initially hiding, became one of the most powerful states in the region-- and all of the successor states started out just as small as the periphery-- in fact, given that most periphery worlds were colonized after the first explosion, they should do better-- more institutional knowledge about what works and what doesn't work would be available.  The smaller populations are not an issue-- given that over the time period talking, even quite low population growth rates lead to massive populations relatively soon.

As for the "conflict breeds development" it didn't-- conflict destroyed technological progress in the Inner Sphere. nations prioritizing civilian development will soon beat the ones focusing on military development, due to the additive nature of a broad based economy.

[Maelwys]

Caches are also going to depend on which conflict you're looking at. Post-Reunification War? Post-Amaris Crisis?

[Archangel]

I pretty much ignore a lot of ISP3.  The problem is that the focus on the Btech universe is on the Clans and IS, and for that reason, anyone else has to be artificially knocked down no matter how much it flies in the face of logic.  The Periphery, in all honesty, should be home to more advanced states then the IS, for the simple reason that it missed out on the Succession wars.

That is absolutely incorrect.  The Periphery states were greatly affected by both them breaking away from the Star League and the Succession Wars.

After subduing the Periphery states, the Star League made them economically dependent upon them in hopes of deterring rebellion.  When they broke away, none of their planets were economically prepared to be completely cut off from their sources of income.  As a result, billions starved because they couldn't afford to import food. 

By helping cause the downfall of the Star League, they also cut themselves off from the only source of spare parts needed to keep terraforming equipment operational and as a result one by one they started failing forcing the Periphery states to abandon previously valuable worlds and causing more deaths.

Their high-tech factories and military suppliers became favored targets for every pirate band, washed up mercenary group, deserters, etc that fled the Inner Sphere for the Periphery.  Periphery worlds would even occasionally be targeted by the Great Houses whether to expand their borders, seize equipment/supplies or simply in a retaliatory strike.  On more than one occasion Periphery worlds suffered WMD strikes including one by the Capellans that apparently permanently poisoned Brinton's ecology.  And while their involvement in the Succession Wars was limited the Magistracy and the Taurians did cross swords on more than one occasion over the course of the Succession Wars.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

As for the "conflict breeds development" it didn't-- conflict destroyed technological progress in the Inner Sphere. nations prioritizing civilian development will soon beat the ones focusing on military development, due to the additive nature of a broad based economy.

The Succession Wars are by far the only conflicts where this held true.
The Age of War saw the rise of the Battlemech and the development of an entirely new doctrine of war.
The Reunification Wars saw the Periphery catch up rapidly to the Terran Hegemony's tech, prototyping and putting into mass production various pieces of advanced construction technologies.
The Clan Wars saw the Inner Sphere playing a massive game of catch up, catching up to the old Star League technological level and then branching off into new technologies even the Clans never thought of.

[Archangel]

It's highly doubtful that the TDF had the resources available to set up anything close to the Blakist Hidden Worlds or even a larger equipment cache, a la SLDF, without compromising their defenses.  They probably did set up a couple of smaller equipment caches in abandoned mines, etc, but nothing that would make a significant difference, and per ISP3 some groups escaped before the fall of the TC apparently with little military equipment.  Not to mention that even at the beginning of the war, much of their equipment was outdated compared to SLDF equipment and they were well aware of that fact.

If anything I would have tried to salvage a warship or two (after repairing battle-damage hidden it rather than sending it back to the front) and hidden what remained of the state treasury of valuable minerals, etc that could be used in the future to finance a future war of independence.

[Korzon77]

That is absolutely incorrect.  The Periphery states were greatly affected by both them breaking away from the Star League and the Succession Wars.

After subduing the Periphery states, the Star League made them economically dependent upon them in hopes of deterring rebellion.  When they broke away, none of their planets were economically prepared to be completely cut off from their sources of income.  As a result, billions starved because they couldn't afford to import food. 

None of which make s the remotest amount of sense. For the last, we've had line developers state that staple food crops were not a major part of interstellar commerce so that is not the case.

Secondly, how long did the Great Depression last? 20 years?  The fall of the star league was in  2780, 245 years before 3025.  There have been bronze age civilizations that moved faster than FASA had periphery states move. The Taurians were absolutely secure within their primary worlds, protected by the asteroid belt-- in fact, they suffered no attacks on their homeworlds until the Jihad era.  245 years of peace-- we'll let's just look at where we were 245 years ago.  We know that Taurus had a population of 2,169,000,000  in 3025, more than large enough for massive industrial development given that nobody had invaded them for nearly 250 years-- again, a time that is longer than it took the real world to go from "hmmmm... is lighting electricity" to lasers and near AI computers and that was without the benefit of knowing it could be done.
And again, pirates *aren't a problem* for the Hyades cluster. They're not successfully attacked until the Jihad which means that every one of those worlds are as safe as Terra itself.

There's one reason why the periphery isn't developed more-- authorial fiat. 

[Archangel]

You are ignoring the fact that the Taurian Concordat wasn't a wealthy nation and was constantly rebuilding.  First from damage caused by their rebellion then damage caused over the course of the Succession Wars.  Most of the remaining funds it did have were devoted to maintaining the egalitarian system that made its government so popular with its citizens as well as simply maintaining the TDF's strength.  Replacing military hardware lost to raiders or on poorly executed military ventures (such as their failed invasion of the Magistracy of Canopus) isn't cheap.

Financing a massive R&D or a massive industrial buildup isn't cheap.  House Liao's attempt to match the NAIS fell short despite enormous funding.  Thomas Calderon's attempt at a massive military build-up nearly caused a civil war within the Taurian Concordat when he redirected funding from social projects to the military industrial complex and eventually led to his downfall.  Shraplen's military build-up resulted in massive unrest and a civil war.  Even the Word of Blake had to steal from all the Great Houses and some Periphery states to help pay for their massive build-up leading up to the Jihad despite controlling Terra.

[jeyar]

Translations for those not used to how things go.

"Hey, here's something cool and makes sense too! Let's try it!"

"NO, you can't have it. If it is fun it has to go to MINE MINE MINE!"

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Financing a massive R&D or a massive industrial buildup isn't cheap.  House Liao's attempt to match the NAIS fell short despite enormous funding.  Thomas Calderon's attempt at a massive military build-up nearly caused a civil war within the Taurian Concordat when he redirected funding from social projects to the military industrial complex and eventually led to his downfall.  Shraplen's military build-up resulted in massive unrest and a civil war.  Even the Word of Blake had to steal from all the Great Houses and some Periphery states to help pay for their massive build-up leading up to the Jihad despite controlling Terra.

These were all massive buildup programs that were intended to reach their goals in a relatively short span of 10-20 years. Well within a single generation. What is being contemplated is a longer development program, intended to span 50, 75 or even hundreds of years. It would leverage the security of the Hyades cluster from attack. This would then be a bare fraction of the cost year over year compared to the examples cited.

[Terminax]

It's your game, do as you will.

[Maingunnery]

You know, I was thinking about this, possibly for a fanfic, but the TC had a massive industrial machine-- and even at the end of the war, they still had most of it, since it was inside the cluster. 
Equally, they had several years to know that they were going to lose. No way around it.  What types of caches might they have established, especially when you consider that there is no FTL tracking in Btech.  Hidden worlds a'la the blakists? Caches of equipment and such just put into interstaller space or the oort cloud of a convenient system?

Just some equipment or data isn't going to help much, as the current TC is stuck with a number of issues.

However I can imagine that as the Reunification War nears the end, that the Taurian Concordat might have implemented a fall-back plan. In this case, a exodus/colony fleet, taking with them some of their industry just to make sure that it doesn't fall into SL hands. This would also help excuse the regression of the TC, as all those people and equipment leaving with it would have a long lasting effect.

And you decide when they re-establish contact with the Taurian Concordat, however their tech won't be as advanced as current era (think reverse-engineered SL tech from Reunification War at best).

[Colt Ward]

I could see weapons being stashed as others have said, even some low-level data corps.  They still find WWII treasure stashes from time to time, though they are dwindling, and equipment dumps with IIRC planes, tanks and artillery.  Throw in the stories of Uboats in South America & the Antarctic that you hear on late night radio and it gives you some interesting options for a story.

Such equipment stashes- say Retromechs, Toros and other stuff would have been a great find in 3010.  Later in 3060, not as much though it would have provided some bulk.

One other thing for the OP to consider . . . sure, they had equipment stashes as the Reunification War drew to a close.  In fact that is even possibly supported depending on how you interpret some of the warship fluff.  Problem is those caches were likely opened up to fight in 2700s when they called for round 2 to start.  Whatever might have been left in those caches would have been the dregs.

To the OP's response to the doubters . . . you are also glossing over ComStar's tech killing pogrom.  And the Maultier find which caused FF armor R&D.

[Fyrwulf]

I pretty much ignore a lot of ISP3.  The problem is that the focus on the Btech universe is on the Clans and IS, and for that reason, anyone else has to be artificially knocked down no matter how much it flies in the face of logic.  The Periphery, in all honesty, should be home to more advanced states then the IS, for the simple reason that it missed out on the Succession wars.

The technological regression has serious problems no matter where you're talking. At a base level, the tools to make the tools never went away, nor did the knowledge. The idea that Comstar got to everybody on every world with any sort of advanced knowledge and never got caught is absurd; they'd have to knock over every staff of every university and every world would have multiple such institutions. The idea that nations, even the Inner Sphere nations, would allow the Terran Hegemony to control access to technology is crazy, because such a policy could be turned against them.

[Colt Ward]

Its not absurd . . . unless you as a casual gamer knows the exact way to build a nuclear reactor to generate steam to turn into electricity.  Sure you know the common knowledge, uranium will create heat that can be used to turn water to steam to spin a turbine which makes electricity.

Do you know the composition of the coolant rods which are used to control the reaction?  Did you even know the coolant rods were needed?  Do you know what is the most efficient amount of water/steam to be in the closed loop system?  What about the number and type of gears used for the turbine to spin on the steam to generate that electricity?

Guess what, we have spent a LOT less time (approx 30 years) since we built a civilian nuclear plant and I would say no one but will grant there might be a few people still remaining with practical experience in building one here in the US.  The only place we really have doing any sort of research into nuclear reactors is the Navy- and who really knows how that program might be limping along.  Sure people know Step 1 is uranium and Step 500 is electricity but we have very few people as one of the most technologically advanced countries that have actually put one online.  And no one has been going out killing the people who DO know.

Studies show that typically when R&D projects are stopped (whatever the reason) they take something like 10 years to get back to the point they were halted even if started back up relatively quickly.

We have had technological regressions in the past- we call one of the most recent the Dark Ages- and they happen for a variety of reasons.  3025 for all the social modeling on the Renaissance period more closely resembles France, Germany, British Isle and Scandinavia in the 200 years after the fall of Rome.  It took a while for them to climb back in some ways to the level of the Romans and other period cultures- even if technology was stabilized or remained higher in other areas of the world.  If you look at some of the archaeology you will see it is a cycle that has repeated through out history usually brought on by mass migrations and changes in growing seasons/climates (Medieval Warming Period, Little Ice Age, etc) which are exacerbated by Malthus pre-Industrial Revolution studies (see French Revolution timing, or the Bolsheviks which is quasi-Industrial Revolution).  It is a open question of if we will have a technological regression in our future (50, 100, 200 years?  who knows) or if the Industrial Revolution broke Malthus cycles (or the Greeks for sharing knowledge).

[Vition2]

The technological regression has serious problems no matter where you're talking. At a base level, the tools to make the tools never went away, nor did the knowledge. The idea that Comstar got to everybody on every world with any sort of advanced knowledge and never got caught is absurd; they'd have to knock over every staff of every university and every world would have multiple such institutions. The idea that nations, even the Inner Sphere nations, would allow the Terran Hegemony to control access to technology is crazy, because such a policy could be turned against them.

Really, you can either accept the fact that it happened in the canon universe or you can make an alternate universe where it didn't happen.  Complaining about it isn't going to change anything, the history of the Battletech Universe is already written and won't go through such a major retcon.

Me, I have trouble accepting a lot of the canon universe, thus am working on an AU that makes more sense to me.

[Terminax]

Secret factories/Hidden caches are both a bit tired but certainly possible. How about redirecting away from that, what else could the TC could have done to make itself competitive from 3025 onward without resorting to A) retiring/killing it's leader and resorting to a Marty Sue (Jeffery Calderon) and/or B) discovery of lost stockpiles or data caches.

[Colt Ward]

Except that  . . .

#1 that was the OP's question, about what sort of caches they could have made

#2 he offers a different flavor of cache, not a SL storage facility of data or the latest equipment but what the losers are trying to hide before the surrender

As I cited earlier, you could go the way Germany did in WWII where they hid valuables and the latest equipment- especially when you consider IIRC Op Wolverine?  Or whatever it was called where they prepared to have insurgents in Bavaria.  Along with that you have the stories of what made its way to South America . . . so what might they have sent into hiding in the Capellan Confederation before they collapsed if the CapCon gave any sort of support against their opposing House Davion.

The Iraquis were known to hide military jets in sand dunes, and other equipment in various places.  They also flew aircraft out of the combat zone to preserve them.  Rumors of gold, bio/chem weapons, mobile labs to produce those weapons and all sorts of other things being out in the desert has persisted.

Honestly, I would think the cache would be very different than SL in that what is in there would either be stuff that got refurbished but never put back on the books as repaired or would be so badly damaged it would be reported as destroyed.  If the surrender was like what we have seen in modern times, basically the logisitics books are turned over to the enemy to account for weapons that had been produced.  So what is in the cache has to be something that is not on the books either final production runs for equipment that never entered the logistics system, something your techs put together by parts or as stated equipment that could be claimed as destroyed.

Other things might be what could have been considered national treasures or a currency reserve.  Clive Cussler's book Sahara starts off with the South trying to get a stack of gold out to fund a government in exile and something similiar could have been done.  You also have things that are extremely symbolic, like IIRC when the White House was burned up the President's wife snuck a portrait past the Brit troops by having it in her skirt.  I wonder if there was ever a plan to get some of the Royal family and Crown Jewels out of the UK if Germany invaded the island.

[Korzon77]

We have had technological regressions in the past- we call one of the most recent the Dark Ages- and they happen for a variety of reasons.  3025 for all the social modeling on the Renaissance period more closely resembles France, Germany, British Isle and Scandinavia in the 200 years after the fall of Rome.  It took a while for them to climb back in some ways to the level of the Romans and other period cultures- even if technology was stabilized or remained higher in other areas of the world.

Historian rage....rising. Seriously, don't ever say that to a historian because it's one of the biggest and worst myths around. The Middle ages, engaged in a vast amount of technological development, most notably the improvement of various technologies broughton by the loss of slave labor that so ****** technology during the Roman empire. The Horse collar and heavy plough are two of the more notably innovations, both arising within a few centuries of the fall of the Western Empire. 
But more importantly, this was in a largely pre-literate era. The Inner Sphere isn't.  That alone should see dramatic technological and industrial improvement. The aftermath of the succession wars isn't hte aftermath of the Fall of the Roman Empire, it should be the aftermath of the First World War.

[Colt Ward]

I am not saying they did not develop ANY technology of their own but they did fall of the technological level.  Indoor plumbing, some metallurgy, logistics and military organization, medicine and other technologies were lost.

[wookiebear]

Historian rage....rising.................

I understand, I really really do  :)

The world we play in is a point off reality in this and some other regards (cough* Fasanomics *cough) from our own universe. 

The idea that the accumulated knowledge of a society is so fragile that it disappears entirely is hard to understand, especially in a society that is literate.  The ability to do some things could easily disappear, but the knowledge that they were possible and the basics that lead to them would endure as long as the knowledge is retained within the culture, either through active use or through books and other storage forms.  It would take longer if the knowledge was not active, but it would be faster than starting from scratch with no knowledge at all. 

The recreation of technology is easier than the invention, sort of the idea that we know it can be done, we just don't have the tools to make the tools.  The knowledge would be there, but possibly not the capability.

In research it is sometimes enough to know that something is possible to make it easier to figure out.

With all that said, the world is as it is and the Periphery is the technological equivalent of the American Old West with Lazers  :)   

It makes for a fun game, which is what we are all looking for I betcha'

wookie

[Archangel]

Given that the OP is about the TC setting up supply caches at the end of the Reunification War, this debate tangent regarding the regression of technology during the Succession Wars is completely irrelevant.  It belongs in its own separate thread.

To get back to the OP, the Taurians wouldn't have considered a mass loss of technology possible so, at best, they might have stored away some design specs which, at the time, were for the most part already obsolete, durable but obsolete.  As previously stated, if anything they should have stored away resources (gems, gold, valuable minerals, etc) to help them rebuild a strong military force whether by purchasing the equipment or building the manufacturing facilities to build the equipment.  After all, trying to build a huge supply cache would be a drain on the war effort that would not go unnoticed by the rest of the TDF with some calling such "defeatist" actions treason and eventually the complaints would likely attract the attention of the SLDF.  The fewer people that know about it and its location the better.

[glitterboy2098]

to be honest, i'm surprised that the Taurians didn't try to design some new mechs during the succession wars. the early ones didn't hit them as hard, and they had mech production already. even if it was just redoing the weapons loads and cosmetics of the one's they had factories for. which IIRC by 3025included the Stinger, Griffin, and maybe the Commando? plenty of things you could do with those as a base.

once the SLDF was gone the Taurians have little reason to maintain the Status Quo forced on them by the Star league.

[Archangel]

One, main reason is that the Periphery was never the focus of the game designers.  Limiting the number of designs they created was in keeping with the setting that the Periphery states are the wild untamed frontier of space.

Second, they were focused on rebuilding their shattered military forces after the fighting against the SLDF.  While they inflicted heavy losses on the SLDF, they had suffered heavy losses of their own.  Limiting the number of different designs to existing designs helped limit rebuilding costs.

Third, limited resources which an extended economic depression, caused by them cutting themselves off from the markets the SL had made them so dependent upon, only made worse.  Like the Great Houses, they were overwhelmed simply trying to keep their people alive.

Fourth, their limited military-industrial complex was repeatedly targeted by pirates, shattered house units fleeing the Inner Sphere, etc.  Some of the raiders even used nukes to cover their tracks.  Even a minor raid could cost them months of lost production including that stolen by the raiders, production lost while the production line(s) is being repaired and production lost while waiting for new parts to be shipped in.

That said they did come up with a few of their own design variants and likely had many more that were abandoned before reaching the prototype stage let alone the production stage.

Regardless, this belongs in its own thread.

[FedComGirl]

Building an entirely new design takes time and money which the Taurians didn't have.  They even stuck with SLDF mechs instead of reintroducing their Toro because it wasn't cost effective to retool the factories.

The Taurians also didn't have to be physically hit by the Succession Wars to feel the ripples of war. After the SLDF won they redid the Peripheries economies so entire worlds were focused on building one item. This was done to eliminate the periphery being self sufficient and make them dependent on the Star League. With the disruption in shipping and commerce those worlds suffered greatly.  Those worlds would have needed to be supported by more capable worlds which would strain the Periphery even more.


As for hidden caches, they existed. The last surviving Toro was hidden in one. What else they might have contained and how many had been opened can vary depending on the game.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

to be honest, i'm surprised that the Taurians didn't try to design some new mechs during the succession wars. the early ones didn't hit them as hard, and they had mech production already. even if it was just redoing the weapons loads and cosmetics of the one's they had factories for. which IIRC by 3025included the Stinger, Griffin, and maybe the Commando? plenty of things you could do with those as a base.

once the SLDF was gone the Taurians have little reason to maintain the Status Quo forced on them by the Star league.

To be fair, the available mechs being produced locally did tend to cover a lot of the roles the fairly small military would need. Recon, skirmishers, troopers, fire support, they practically had everything. They had all of the Unseen designs save for the PHX, BLR, SHD(though it was available next door at the MoC), the OST's and the WVR.

[GeminiBull]

You know, I was thinking about this, possibly for a fanfic, but the TC had a massive industrial machine-- and even at the end of the war, they still had most of it, since it was inside the cluster. 
Equally, they had several years to know that they were going to lose. No way around it.  What types of caches might they have established, especially when you consider that there is no FTL tracking in Btech.  Hidden worlds a'la the blakists? Caches of equipment and such just put into interstaller space or the oort cloud of a convenient system?

I have this in my alternate future fan fiction thing. ;D I haven't gotten to the TC just yet, but you do see some of what the TC has acquired from a long forgotten base in what I have posted. Yeah this is a little like a promo for my thing and I'm sorry.  :-[ I just love BT. If anything, the TC would have created distant caches rimward of its borders after the Reunification War. Slowly building them up. They did it before the Amaris Civil War. There should still be some untouched ones out there.

[Nightgaun7]

none of the canon universe makes sense from just about any perspective you choose, just do what you want.

[glitterboy2098]

I'm not sure you'd get many Caches of the complex military hardware. Mechs, combat vehicles, and the like would have been shipped to the front as quickly as they could be made during the fall of the TC to the SLDF.. and by the time anyone figured out that they were going to lose, i doubt there would have been much time to build caches.

however i could see a lot of Caches of lower-end gear (Infantry weapons, body armor, etc) being set up widely during that time. it would be a lot easier to hide away a couple platoons worth of gear than it would be a mech, and infantry weapons and gear is manufactured in large enough quantities that you could siphon off entire company's worth of gear without really harming the supply to the frontline. plus it is compact.. a few pallets of crates that could be squirreled away in a basement or hidden in a fairly small hidden bunker.

plus such Caches would be easily justified to the military as pre-positioning for Guerrilla uprisings after the SLDF occupies the TC. and if the TC was pre-positioning similar caches in less covert fashion "for the defense of the homeworld", you could hide the secret ones in plain sight.

on the less military side i could see the industries building some caches to hold their databanks, records, blueprints, etc. less because they'd be afraid of the SLDF destroying all those (i suspect that when the SLDF did it caught them by surprise) but as a hedge against any loses due to battle damage during invasion, or sabotage.


the more advanced hardware, the mechs and such, i doubt many made it into caches. odds are that some Unit commander's might have tried to hide away gear, some Taurians tried to 'rescue' a few from the SLDF wreckers.. but i doubt that any caches such groups could arrange short notice would last more than a few decades in any useable condition. after a century or so they'd need a ton of work.

[Red Pins]

First, let me say this is a fascinating discussion!  Its gone a bit afield, but really interesting.  Btw, 'Black Bessie' was salvaged off a battlefield and hidden, iirc, not placed in a cache to repair and serve after the occupation.

none of the canon universe makes sense from just about any perspective you choose, just do what you want.

Also, Reading the previous posts, I have several points of agreement, mostly this one.  Its a game, after all.  The designers focused on massive wars, political intrigue, and not the little guys off in the corners without the bucket, to, you know, after shafting them.   ^-^

And they didn't concentrate on the clever, or even commonsense, with notable exceptions (truly massive doses of stupid pills, here).  Yes, they had holdout military reserves - iirc, according to the ISP 3 section mentioned, those were used (if they ever really existed - I despise the ISP books simply for that, as well as the Genecaste TP) with the exception of the crippled TDF WarShip in mothballs resurrected by the Blakists in the Jihad for the Concordat.  (I suppose the biggest remaining golden eggs are the Amaris storehouses supposedly hidden in the deep Periphery - good luck finding them, eh?)

Anyway, I think equipment and materials caches such as the Amaris factories or Marion Hegemony's Germainium storehouses make a LOT more sense - rebuilding materials and military production equipment or stockpiles would go a long way to quickly bouncing back - but it wouldn't be easy to hide in the kind of quantities needed.  Massive quantities, by the way.  Massive - huge - in scattered locations, or a couple remote locations guaranteed to be secure for decades.  My point is they would have been forced to consider a member planet or nearby system, since just moving it would have been next to impossible while facing occupation. Something like the collapse of Nazi germany might make sense, as individuals move to deny things to the invading Star League that they could loot for their immediate benefit.  Any number of them could still exist, similar to the storehouse for the Helm memory core.

But a technology cache?  ...Not really.  The C* 'Holy Shroud' campaign (more than one, according to the fluff) was a pretty cunning bit of in-universe explaination, and went a long way toward making an extended SW timeline plausable.  Sure, there are all kinds of tech companies, universities, colleges, hobbists even, but the kinds of massive government programs to recover some of these things and the SW themselves would work to keep the number of Bill Gates/Steve Jobs down.  In-universe, they stand out, and the whackos in the white bathrobes would have been on them like cheap lawyers on a wrongful death suit.  When the SL took education materials, books, equipment, EVERYTHING the Concordat needed to recover after they won, it was the only smart thing they could have done.

Frankly, the idea of the Helm, Dallas, and the SL-era Prometheus data core were drivers to explain new rulebooks and TROs, imo - it was the only thing that could explain how after only a few years could go by such massive improvements were possible, but I use the possibility of a SL Prometheus database to explain the conditions of my AU.  Its your fanfic or AU, after all.  Oh - seems to me there was a fanfic here where an operational WS misjumped and came out in 3025 with such a memory core - it was pretty good.  Looking forward to reading your take on it.

[Arkansas Warrior]

Here's an easy, multipurpose cache the Taurians could seed on multiple worlds: sheep.  They provide meat, wool, recreation, and they're even self-replicating!  Interestingly, it's actually a proven idea: there are a number of North Atlantic islands with no permanent human population, but plenty of sheep.  The shepherds will come by occasionally to shear, slaughter, stc, but otherwise leave them to their own devices.

[Sharpnel]

Here's an easy, multipurpose cache the Taurians could seed on multiple worlds: sheep.  They provide meat, wool, recreation, and they're even self-replicating!  Interestingly, it's actually a proven idea: there are a number of North Atlantic islands with no permanent human population, but plenty of sheep.  The shepherds will come by occasionally to shear, slaughter, stc, but otherwise leave them to their own devices.

Those crazy Scots and Irish (maybe).

[Nightgaun7]

Prometheus database

What's the source on this?

[Red Pins]

I think it's the jihad TRO, in the old is the new new section.  I think.  I'll look for it after work

[Red Pins]

Sarna actually lists it on a disambiguation page under 'prometheus', but doesn't give it a reference or link - Sorry, I just don't have time to run the reference down right now.  My evil, evil, wife is limiting my computer time.  Something about getting enough sleep. 

[Maelwys]

The Prometheus Database shows up a couple of times. The first time is in the original Star League sourcebook, on page 104 under the Department of Education and Information. It talks about a "Prometheus Inc" that was a government run company that published books, managed libraries and ran vast computer databases available to the SL citizens. It also talks about the Prometheus database being connected to Prometheus run libraries and being free to anyone visiting the library, or who had a personal computer.

All of the data was naturally contained on computers on Terra which didn't survive the Amaris Coup.

The database is again mentioned in TR3075, which states that while the Helm Core was "immensely valuable" it was incomplete, because it was only part of the Prometheus database.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

That warship misjumping to 3025 is if I'm not mistaken By the Horns by Master Arminas.

Frankly even an RW era Taurian Concordat database would be plentiful. Remember that even after defeat, the Taurian Concordat remains one of the best educated populations in BT. Without Holy Shroud and Star League educational tampering, the Taurian Concordat was able to reverse engineer and put into production such things as endo steel, ferro fibrous, double heat sinks, and beagle active probes. And prototype extra light FE's. All in just over ten years. That's aside from having the native knowhow to build the second largest warfleet in known space.

[Archangel]

That warship misjumping to 3025 is if I'm not mistaken By the Horns by Master Arminas.

Frankly even an RW era Taurian Concordat database would be plentiful. Remember that even after defeat, the Taurian Concordat remains one of the best educated populations in BT. Without Holy Shroud and Star League educational tampering, the Taurian Concordat was able to reverse engineer and put into production such things as endo steel, ferro fibrous, double heat sinks, and beagle active probes. And prototype extra light FE's. All in just over ten years. That's aside from having the native knowhow to build the second largest warfleet in known space.

You need to re-check your facts.  While the TC does have one of the best educated populations in BT overall, they had plenty of difficulty reverse engineering SL tech and in fact received assistance  from the Trinity Alliance and then later more from the Word of Blake in order to achieve some of the SL tech you listed.  While the tech may have appeared over the span of a decade, the TC had been trying to reverse engineer it for decades with limited success.

[Red Pins]

Oh - I took that to be about the period before the reunication war.

[Colt Ward]

Nah . . . IIRC it was either 3030s or a bit earlier they discovered a cache of Maultier APCs on some world.  They could replicate the vehicle except for the advanced (FF) armor that was beyond them until the late 3050s.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

You need to re-check your facts.  While the TC does have one of the best educated populations in BT overall, they had plenty of difficulty reverse engineering SL tech and in fact received assistance  from the Trinity Alliance and then later more from the Word of Blake in order to achieve some of the SL tech you listed.  While the tech may have appeared over the span of a decade, the TC had been trying to reverse engineer it for decades with limited success.

That's after the STar League and Holy Shroud. I'm talking about before either one had a chance to tamper with the Taurian knowledge base. The Taurian Concordat was able to reverse engineer all these during the Reunification Wars.

[DarthRads]

My iluminati group"The Dark Circle" has it's origin in this very idea. In the closing years of the RW the TC tried to pull an exodus, a Wagon Wheel frigate (modified with additional collars) carrying a tech database mis-jumped, and ended up thousands of years in the past in the Sol System. The story goes from there...