[Lore Question] Alliance Capital Ships

Edelgard von Rhein

E
Seeing some concept art FD has done for Capital Ship designs ( https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=241499&page=2 ) inspires the question: what does the Alliance use for Capital Ships?
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As one of the superpowers, the Alliance will need to both protect its systems from incursion and to project power in systems in which it has (or desires) an interest. The Federation has the Farragut class battlecruiser and the Empire has the Majestic class interdictor, both of which they do sell to independent factions (albeit rarely), presumably with a EULA to not deploy them against the manufacturers. So, does the Alliance procure its Capital Ships from both, so that if it gets into a disagreement with one of the superpowers it can use the Capital Ships bought from the other one? Does it 'make do' with Anacondas or other large vessels for its top-end military hardware? Is it building its own in secret?
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The concept art shown in the thread linked above has some very impressive-looking warships and I can see the Alliance, at some point in the future, having their own unique Capital Ships. With the Federation and the Empire both looking to increase their military (and with successful CGs to construct new Capital Ships), it would seem natural that the Alliance would want to make sure it does not get left behind, should an actual arms race take place. It would be great to see one of these designs make it into the game.
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(FWIW, I particularly like the models labelled 1, 4, 6, 18 and 20. These all have the sleek, mean and impressive looks of a ship that can be used both in the ambassadorial role as well as in the front line of battle.)
 

ilmostro

ilmostro
All 3 powers need more Capital Ships, otherwise they're going to be ****** when the Thargoids invade in 2.4
 

dayrth

Volunteer Moderator
dayrth
We poor Alliance...ites (pretty sure that's not a word), have not had much love so far. Not only do we not have capitol ships, we don't have any Alliance only ships or even a ranking system :( I am hoping that this will change.
 
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Lowe1978

L
As I understand it, in Lore the Alliance currently don't have have capital ships because of the arrangement of power with the Alliance - they're effectively independent worlds with their own culture etc that are grouped politically. As such they don't have a united military, and so haven't pooled resources sufficiently to build a capital class ship.
 

TiberiusMaximus

T
The Alliance does not have a standing navy, it is assembled when an Alliance world is attacked, or threatened. The Alliance controls the largest shipyard in the Elite universe - Alioth. If The Alliance wanted to, they could build many capital ships. One thing we do know is that The Alliance has a Thargoid battleship. I do think in future months and years, we will see the Alliance become the dominant power in the galaxy, along with their Thargoid allies.
 

sam445

S
Schlack said:
Fear the mighty battle-hauler.... 10,000 haulers glued together. Another Cap ship might even destroy 5000 of these but it will still keep coming.
Click to expand...

Brilliant.

In other words: Indeed, it would be good for the Alliance to finally have a little something in-game. Heck, even the history and lore galnet series was cancelled just before it got to the time of the creation of the Alliance.
 

lysan

lysan
I like the design of number 6 and number 20 as Alliance ships :)

The Alliance has been staved in the Lore, and they need to have there own ship design for the main fleet.
New type of small fighters would also be nice.

josh-atack-warshipthumbs01.jpg
 
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Deathwatch

Deathwatch
From my understanding alliance and independants use re purposed freighters or ships currently not designed ingame it would be interesting to see these ships for npcs say a frigate half the size of a capital may drop in to engage one and draw fire away from smaller vessels
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
The Lore reason is that, up until this moment in time, the Alliance has not seen the need to deploy Capital Ships.

The surprise Alliance victory over the Empire and Federation naval divisions deployed to Alioth 70 years ago was not brought about by outblasting the enemy, but by outlasting them. I believe it was the superior skill of the Alliance pilots making effective use of "home ground advantage" to fight a successful war of attrition, combined with a willingness to use cutting edge technology, gave the Alliance victory without having to resort to joining the Capital Ship arms race. Not entirely unlike the English defeating the Spanish Armada, despite having only a small fleet of much smaller warships.

Not to mention that neither the Empire nor Federation were particularly highly motivated in maintaining their attempted occupations of Alioth given the fierce native resistance. For the Empire, Alioth was too remote to maintain a long combat supply line through mostly-hostile space. And the Federation was only there because the Empire was there; once the Empire withdrew, it was "Mission Accomplished" and the Feds saw no need to stay where they clearly weren't welcome.

Alliance foreign policy is currently to attempt to maintain a low profile - stay a "small target", and neither Federation nor Empire will see it as a threat or as worth the effort to go to the expense and difficulty of a full-scale invasion and occupation. Not building a fleet of capital ships would be in line with this policy.

Further, the decentralized nature of the Alliance means there is no budget for Capital Ships. Each individual planetary system in the Alliance builds its own navy and supplies ships from that navy to combined Alliance efforts when needed. No single planet is rich enough and powerful enough to build and maintain a Capital Ship.

No doubt both the Empire and Federation have additional classes of capital ships; we just don't see them in-game yet. Carriers, Dreadnoughts, Troop Transports, that sort of thing.

TiberiusMaximus said:
...One thing we do know is that The Alliance has a Thargoid battleship...
Click to expand...

I assume you're referring to the one The Commander retrieved during the FFE plot-line. That ship was just a small one-man scout ship, not a front-line Thargoid battleship. And no-one really knows in ED Lore what happened to it. Did The Commander keep it? Did he/she fly off with it to destination unknown? Did he/she hand it over to the Alliance boffins once they got bored with it? Did the INRA get their hands on it in the end? We don't know - I don't think it's ever been formalized in ED Lore.

The Thargoids and the Alliance are not, and never have been, "allies". Having a unitary eusocial (hive-mind) structure, the Thargoids probably have considerable difficulty in understanding the concept of Human political factions and the nature of the differences between them, all caused by Human individualism. All they know for sure is that some Humans tried to exterminate them, and some other Humans helped them out. After 500 years of interacting with Humans, mostly violently, one thing I'm sure they've learned is that Humans have little concept of "loyalty"; a faction of Humans that say they want to be friends and make peace in one century can inexplicably turn hostile in the next.
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
I can't find a 'right' looking one tonight.
But my notion is that the Allaince Capital ships change the governments and the economies of the systems they visit.
Maybe 5000 tons of cargo. Would that be enough?
Require a crew of 3 and a wing of fighters.
about a kilometer long. (would that be enough?)

These pics are pig ugly. but I've said it a bunch of times and posted nicer pics.

4d5c592c692d8a863d310f24a3c9d369.jpg

15243922155_9247c61af2_b.jpg
 
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Edelgard von Rhein

E
Interesting thoughts here, especially regarding why it might be a good idea for the Alliance to not have Capital Ships, as well as the suggestion that they use smaller, faster, more manoeuvrable ships to do the job.
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I also agree that it makes sense that the superpowers have both a navy and an auxiliary support with different ships with different capabilities, like supply freighters and troop transporters. I think the Lynx bulk carriers from FFE are on the scale of Capital Ships and there could well be other vessels too large to dock internally at a spaceport, at least in lore. The Farragut battlecruiser is reportedly able to carry Federal Corvettes internally, implying a large landing pad capability, so perhaps other ships might have landing pads of different sizes without actually being a full-on battlecruiser. The Lynx would probably be a ship that could do a peaceful job in Alliance space without upsetting the other superpowers and yet be able to accommodate enough combat ships on its landing pads to be used as a makeshift Capital Ship if one were ever needed. The nature of the Alliance, as pointed out, is not conducive to collaboration on this kind of military project - it sounds like it is more of a militia than a cohesive military organisation. Some of the wealthier Alliance systems (especially the Old Worlds) could probably afford some serious hardware, though, if they could justify the expenditure. For the time being, however, that does not seem to be the case.
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Thanks for the constructive replies! My understanding of the situation has improved. (I still like those concept designs ...)
 

lysan

lysan
I'm not an expert in the Elite Lore, however from what I know the Admirals council are the military leaders and no one can out rule them.
They would most likely try to gain as much force as possible, thus pushing for the construction of a capital ship or two.

Capital ships are more than just a military asset, it's also a political asset. If the minister is traveling around in Alliance space with a capital ship, it demonstrant power. A demonstration of power can be used to put systems in their place, or to impress others.

moreover, its a political tool.

To see a capital ship armada arriving to your system must be a sight to behold. Because until now we only see the capital ship, however normally it would be a lot more than that.

[video=youtube;tHIAibDr3yM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHIAibDr3yM[/video]
 

Il Lupo Rossi

Il Lupo Rossi
TiberiusMaximus said:
The Alliance does not have a standing navy, it is assembled when an Alliance world is attacked, or threatened. The Alliance controls the largest shipyard in the Elite universe - Alioth. If The Alliance wanted to, they could build many capital ships. One thing we do know is that The Alliance has a Thargoid battleship. I do think in future months and years, we will see the Alliance become the dominant power in the galaxy, along with their Thargoid allies.
Click to expand...

THIS^ SO MUCH THIS!
 

Adhock

A
HELLO NECRO MY OLD FRIEND!

Already made another topic about this possibly being changed in the future with the Empire breaking the London Treaty.
 
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