Indeed. I believe it was already said several chapters ago that there are plenty of brand spanking new Karinne ships that can't be put into service since there are no qualified people to man them.betatester wrote:Even if you are the most technologically advanced civilization, you need manpower to field a big army and fleet. Otherwise enemies could zerg-rush you. Just like andromedeans are doing to milky way at the moment.
Although the enemy does have massive resources they can bring to bear, two things stop them from being overwhelming. First, they still have to fight a war back at home. Fighting on two sides is a sure way to defeat, ancient warmongerers knew that quite well - or learned it at their own expense. Second, any war bigger than a local border conflict is fought and won or lost on a good supply chain. And fighting a war in another galaxy is certainly the best example of 'long supply chain' there has been so far. Indeed, since the follow up waves are well known and any supply group will definitely be hit by the locals they took everything they need to survive in the short term with them to the war. Long term, they will either win the fighting and establish a solid industry base by taking over local worlds or they will die. Therefore, the enemy can only project a tiny amount of those huge resources he has against us.At the moment Karinnes are fighting Syndicate and Consortium, both of whom have huge populations and hundreds of thousands of warships. They each have half a galaxy worth of resources/manpower that's why the milky way empires came together to repel these invaders and take a stand.
God beware if they ever get their hands on gates.
Well, there will certainly be some who will eye all those nifty gadgets those Karinne have. On the other hand, Jason is busy working on alternatives to that big stick foreign policy. Greed and resentment will over the decades make people stupid. It will also help true enemies manipulate others into attacking Karinne worlds, no matter how stupid that is. Fear goes only so far until you either go as far away from the source of that fear as possible or you attack, just in the hopes to get it over with and get rid of that fear. It is a terrible way to keep House Karinne whole and healthy.But once all these wars are over, the Karinnes need to able to project that they can stand on their own against the whole milky way empires if the worst happens;
As Fel hinted that this book is all about the translight Flt and the Karinne Conviction to not share it with any other empire; thats going to generate a lot of resentment against them. Once the milky way empires don't need Karinnes to stop Andromedeans they might start eyeing up Karinnes. Therefore Jason needs to maintain big stick foreign policy and for that he needs numbers.
Instead, they are claiming worlds to grow food or mine ores. Both is essential for a healthy growth of a society. He is also busy building trade networks with gates and jump inhibitors. Coincidently he has integrated his main headache, the Faey, into that network. If you make mountains of money by trading each year and attacking will mean it all goes away, why, anyone advocating a military solution will find herself very unpopular all of a sudden. Money makes the world go round and people will go to a lot of trouble to keep that money flowing. Just ask the oil industry, the energy companies, the music mafia,... there are still copyrights on songs where the one who created them is long dead. Who gets the money? Well, certainly not the dead guy.
So, if anyone wants to use military forces to gain Karinne technology, they will make themself some very big troubles in the international... uh, no, interstellar community. All those other races certainly don't want the money to stop flowing, the security of gates and jump inhibitors to go away, the power of Karinne technology in hands that might not be as friendly and trustworthy as Karinne. And don't forget, the Kimdori won't allow anything bad to happen. They made a mistake last time and will certainly be very intend on that not happening again.
So, I think it might even be a good idea to give others the impression that while Karinne can defend itself, it does not have all that much ships, troops and therefore power that they could attack others. If you are to strong, others might feel that it is just a question of time until you attack them - and they might agree that offense is the best defense.
