Haesslich said:
So you call Tolwyn getting tried for genocide and the Black Lance hunted down like dogs 'getting away with it'? They didn't - they were instead exposed by Farmer Blair and a bunch of ne'er-do-wells known as the Border Worlds.
That's why that great little word
almost was put in there. besides, they were secret enough to stay under the radar while the GE program came to completion and the Dragon fighter was designed, tested and built (even for a prototype, that's at least 5 years)
Haesslich said:
Notice that the Dragon's maneuverability and shielding levels are now present in WCP-era Excaliburs, and later bomber designs like the Shrike and Devastator. The Dragon's technology survived, or at least the lessons learned from it did, but the fighter itself did not.
Thanks for helping me hammer home my point. The improvements to the Dragon (and beyond) are seen in the Prophecy fighters, hence somewhere between WC4 and WCP they had to test all these great improvements on a craft. Why not use a Lance as your testbed instead of building a whole new craft that a) takes money, b) takes time, and c) may not work as well as the Lance. I'll take door number 1, Monty.
Haesslich said:
And frankly - when you whore yourself out for votes, and news of a genocidal eugenics campaign employing bioweapons and terror tactics makes its way around Confed space, you're going to try to avoid being associated with such things if you make your living on the good graces of the voting public. Therefore Dragons being employed are a no-no, unless you're Blair in the Black Lance ending.
Again, I didn't say anything about the Senate voting on a thing. That's what 'classified project funds' are for. You go to the senate say, "we're designing hte next generation of fighters" or even more vague than that. The senate doesn't know how you got to these designs, so they can't be held responsible. No vote, no whoring.
And why is Blair above the law in the 'evil' ending? Since the Heart of the Tige says its okay, the Senate will just let him take the Dragons and do whatever he pleases? I'd like to hold that up as an example that the Lance didn't have a political slant and could be used after WC4.
Haesslich said:
Besides, they got what they needed out of the deal - the technology which enabled the Dragon to move so well despite its size, and its heavy shielding. Why bother employing them? I've said as much in previous posts, which were apparently ignored by the 'Let's bring the Dragon back!' camp.
We're talking the interim time between WC4 and WCP. The Dragon is still the hottest thing on the block, the most technologically advanced peice of equipment in the known universe. that's why you would bother employing them.
Haesslich said:
Bioweapons and nerve gas in warfare. Notice that nice nations don't use them . . .
Yes nerve gas and bioweaps are bad, we all know that, but the Lance is whats on 'trial' here, not the weapons it used. Yes there is that faction in Japan, but they are against the atomic payload the bomber carried, not the bomber itself. The Lance carried WMD, so did the B-29, doesn't mean it will be condemned for all of history because of this. Hell, you could have delivered the nerve gas and the Flashpak with a modified Hellcat or Excal if you wanted to, would that have made them evil as well?
Quarto said:
And yet, the V-2 rockets are a very good example of just how sensitive these kinds of issues are. That, you see, is why NASA didn't get a . ..
Okay, I'll conceed those points, but the fact remains that we used the technology derived from the V-2 to do all of this good. We kept alot of them intact because, I can tell you from experince, testing somethign thats already in the prtotype stage is much easier than taking the blueprints and following someone elses work and building another one. Confed does need Lance (IMHO), the people who designed these fighters are probably part of the Black Lance themselves (in order to keep this fighter quiet) its not like they are going to be in a posistion to help in the coming century or so. As stated above, blueprints and research are one thing. . . a full fledged working prototype is another. Its not expensive to keep the ones you have going, they're aparrently self-sufficient. Building others (which is something I'm not suggesting) is what would be expensive as hell. It wold be more expensive to scrap what has been put into the Dragon and start again from blueprints and research.
I don't know, I think it would be hard for a military man to go, " we have a new fighter that is the most state of the art bird to date and can do a,b,c,d,e,f,g, . . ., lets just scrap this thing shall we?" I'd think this is one toy anyone would have trouble mothballing, just because I really don;t think the Black Lance bad press would spill over to the Dragon.
C-ya