The Shipyard Worlds Non-aggression Pact

Senator_Ordan

Date: Saturday, 14 Apr 2012, 1:51 PM | Message # 16

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And obliges them to defend each other irrespective of the behaviour of the attacked world.

Senator Hubert Ordan
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Senator of the Azure Sector
Foreign Minister of Anaxes
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LomenRyuun

Date: Saturday, 14 Apr 2012, 2:06 PM | Message # 17

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If the attacked world is attacked by a non-shipyard world, then no it does not, Senator Ordan. All it ensures is that no shipyard world will attack another shipyard world.

Lomen Ryuun
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Senator_Ordan

Date: Saturday, 14 Apr 2012, 2:11 PM | Message # 18

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That's not what the act says.

Quote (LomenRyuun)

III. Shipyard worlds will work together if one world is threatened to assist and defend the threatened world against assault.

LomenRyuun

Date: Saturday, 14 Apr 2012, 2:12 PM | Message # 19

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Hm. That's a good point, Senator Ordan. Perhaps I made it too stringent by those measures.

Senator_Cambrist

Date: Sunday, 15 Apr 2012, 3:30 PM | Message # 20

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Senator Ryuun has put a lot of work into this measure, but I concur with Senator Ordan that it's simply not workable, and I project it will indeed have a detrimental effect on the ship-building industry. The Senator from Anaxes has made this point already, that, while this bill is undoubtedly a boon for the sellers of cut-rate or, if you will, "dinky" shipyards to worlds that want to take advantage of this bill's protections of "shipyard worlds," the resulting over-abundance of these shipyards (shipyards in name only) will result in the proliferation of ships below market standards of quality at the expense of private shipyards throughout the galaxy.

I appreciate that Senator Ryuun has made efforts to exclude "dinky" shipyards from his bill via a requirement that a shipyard be capable of producing cruiser-sized vessels. But here a distinction should be made between producing and manufacturing—even the most derelict of so-called shipyards can "produce" the components of a cruiser-sized vessel over a sufficient period of time, and be said to have "produced" the vessel itself. But the actual assembly and manufacture of a market-quality cruiser is another matter, and this, as Senator Ordan has said, is one of the loopholes of this measure.

But fixing this part of the bill won't fix the bill, I'm afraid. Ultimately, it is its premise that isn't feasible and, moreover, isn't necessary. Not to be redundant, but Senator Ordan, again, has noted that the law requiring a world to consult the Imperial Ruling Council about the use of force on another world (a law that I proposed) enables the Empire to exercise its discretion and either forbid the use of force on a "shipyard world" or impose conditions on it; namely, "Do not target the planet's shipyard."

I also draw the Senate's attention to another article of that law, requiring that Imperial worlds, in using force on one another, "shall not impede interstellar commerce to and from the world in question in an unreasonable or indiscriminate fashion, insofar as it is possible to prevent this (i.e. no placing of space mines in an indiscriminate fashion, no deliberate destruction of spaceports, etc., if possible)." I believe this is phrased broadly enough to include shipyards.

Either way, this bill employs a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed, and it would be as damaging to the ship-building industry as the inclusion of amateurs in the TransGal circuit would be to the sport of swoop racing. I vote against.

(To be clear, I'm not representing the opinion of the Commerce Committee on this, though I'm confident that if it'd been consulted it would have come to the same conclusions that Senator Ordan and myself have).