OK, here's a weird one, for the fanfic I'm working on:
We know in the early 3060s, the Niops Association has a population of around 20 million spread across three planets in the same red dwarf star system. The planets are close enough, in fact, that aerospace fighters can stage between each planet in less than a day with minimal drop tanks. It's also, IIRC, less than 3 days to their jump point.
So, we know some level of interplanetary travel has to happen - if not, how'd they settle all three worlds? Cargo and people travel back and forth between the three planets.
Additionally, the Niops Association Militia has four "regiments" which each consisited of a 'Mech/armor battalion and two infantry battalions, which have to shuffle troops between the three planets, as well as a single (in 3062 or so) aerospace fighter wing. Over the run-up to the Jihad, they also funded another battalion (IIRC) of armor/'Mechs via "astronomical research data". After the Jihad began, they also started producing Nighthawk PA(L) suits. So, they've certainly got high-tech production, but it's always been characterized as being very slow, and often practically hand-built.
During the Jihad, occasional reports from JumpShips come in to tell about the invasion of Niops after their HPGs go silent. It's not clear whether these were JumpShips visiting Niops or, initially, escapees, though.
Given that this isn't the FGC'62, where Niops could produce JumpShips without too much difficulty, were gearing up to produce the Tracker class, and had the blueprints to the Newgrange but absolutely no hope of ever building them, I'm trying to figure out what a more realistic picture of Niops merchant and military shipping might have looked like at the start of the invasion by the Word of Blake. What their shipbuilding industry might look like would be an added bonus.
So, how big a civilian DropShip fleet would Niops realistically? As for designs, I figure the Danais is a possibility, though they seem to have gotten better gear than the average Periphery state (since they were directly colonized by the "Star League"), so something like the Buccaneer or Mule may be more likely. I'm not aware of too many passenger liners, just the Monarch and, IIRC, Princess.
I'm assuming Niops can't move their entire military at one time, which makes sense, since they had little need to do so. Figure shipping to move maybe a quarter of that - around one combined arms battalion and two battalions of infantry at most? Thoughts?
Lastly, what do you think their FTL transportation assets probably look like?
My end goal in all of this is not only to try to round out my mental picture of what the Niops Association looks like, but also to figure out what realistically could have escaped at the start of the invasion - yes, chanman and I had the idea of a "ragtag" fleet led by some military ship escorting a wacky bunch of transhumanists looking to start over somewhere else.
Ideas, comments, suggestions, mockery, derision? ???