@@feariex Looks like the M338 is only going to be used by special forces and is a Medium Machine Gun. The M2 is a heavy machine gun and the latest version, the M2A1 was only introduced in 2010 (complimenting the underlying point, that designs DO get updated and modernised).
Or just the M1911. Still in service with some country's millitary. After more than a century. And it's modernization of M1911A1 that was first manifactured in 1924, and that is still being manufactured today.
The Brown Bess remained in active military service from 1722 to 1867, about 145 years, and variants are still manufactured today as hobby muskets. I will bet the M2 will beat the Bess's service life.
@@sirtrafalgar1 Indeed. I suspect just like the Brown Bess, the M2 Browning will probably only be replaced by a new cartridge design or new gun powder chemistry or something to that effect that renders the bullet obsolete.
Please, please keep doing these! I'm constantly dismayed by how little time I'm currently able to afford to following the excellent lore of SC. Your coverage more than makes up for it and I'm always elated in finding a new one to listen to. 💜
If you want a perfect example of older vehicles being used in modern militaries, look no further than the Canadian Air Force. The CP-140 had it's 40th anniversary of service a few years back, the gov't is saying life extension until 2035, but it'll be around 2050 before they leave service is my guess. edit: just ran the math, they've already been flying 45 years...
This video is proof we need PvE Arena Commander scenario modes where we get to reenact famous battles from the UPE/UEE (except the whole bombing civilians thing).
There are no xenos civilians. There are only xenos and purged xenos. As the UAE is a staunch believer in essential human dignity and equality, it is happy to recognize the identity of any humans who freely choose to identify themselves with the xenos and will treat them as they wish: xeno scum.
I’ve been scrounging the tube for lore about sc. your channel is absolutely nuts and I appreciate the heck out of this adds a lot of depth to my game at least thanks man good work!
This is a fun video... Thx for this summary it paints an interesting picture of the SC Lore... Looking forward to more videos... Maybe something similar with the alien races (if there is enough lore data to make one)
Absolutely love these! On a side note, can we expect to see warhammer 40k lore on here some time? I just got into it and you seem to be the perfect person for the intro to the universe!
I can give that doctoral thesis even though I think that was meant as don't do it, but I am sure you know that people like us can't avoid it because context is everything. I am a maritime historian, and the definition of doctrine used is absolutely correct within the framework of our current understanding. However, there are typically three levels of military doctrine: the grand strategic view, the strategic, and the tactical. I'll use a period I am familiar with, the late eighteenth century, to give an example of Royal Naval doctrine. The grand strategic view of the Napoleonic era was that the Royal Navy maintained a fleet double that of the primary foe, the French. A massive bureaucratic structure had to be implemented to keep that fleet. The strategic view of the Royal Navy required fleets to blockade ports on the continent and adopt a policy of containment. The tactical doctrine adopted by the admirals commanding the fleet followed Nelson's lead and sought a decisive victory. Some parts of this video did an excellent job of the first two but left out the tactical view, while when talking about the more recent history, you prioritized the tactical over both strategic views. So, I am getting to the question. Was this due to a lack of source material, or was there some other reason for the change in focus? Also, I have some responses about your periodization of the eras because they need to express the changes that reflect the reasons that caused the doctrinal shift or how it changed. Most of them are name changes to make clear what drives the doctrinal shift, while others combine eras because there is a slow evolution throughout the era and are marked by an event that forces dramatic change rapidly. 2380-2388 could have been combined into the Unification Wars era because many structural issues remained, but the only changes were in response to battlefield conditions presented by the conflict. 2389-2437 I see as more of the Frontier era because it centers on expanding humanity's reach beyond the confines of Sol and Croshaw. I combine the later two periods of your police era together, 2438-2530, to form the First Contact era because it's bookended by the two main first contact scenarios and its focus on building up the fleet to maintain policing operations and now to face advanced alien threats. 2530-2541's designation as the Heavy Fleet era works, but then again, I see this as a gap in our historical knowledge at this point that exists right before the First Tevarin War. 2541-2546, marked by the First Tevarin War; as this is humanity's first major conflict since the Unification Wars, it represents a sea change in doctrine to meet the threat of the Tevarin doctrine. I have a couple of side notes here before I continue with my manuscript. The enemy's doctrine influences the doctrine of the UPE more than technological shifts and often pushes technological change rather than the other way around. I don't mark out a specific period for the second Tevarin War because this conflict resulted from political failures during the Messer era rather than a failure of doctrine. The doctrine developed during the first war remained during the second war. Still, technological advancements of humanity lagged behind, and this can all be attributed to the intelligence failures of the Messer regime since they were focused on stomping out internal descent rather than on alien threats. You've got 2547-2603, absolutely spot on. It's defined by a cold war, and I would keep that going longer because despite other changes that Vanduul's doctrine shifts, the Xi'an represents a threat with their own doctrine that the UEE needs to counter. 2604-2792 Nimble Fleet era works here, although I might have gone with the Quick Reaction era because while it focused on nimble ships, it also created the idea of responding quickly to the Vanduul threat. It's probably a continuation of the Perry Line era, but it's in that odd period that overlaps because one side of the empire needs to have one doctrine and the other a different set of doctrines. 2792-2945, I am not sure it works as the Squadron era, although this could be my lack of understanding here; the focus on Squadrons in the media during this period, I think, is propaganda to allow people who just overthrew the Messers to see that individuals can effect massive changes on history. This era is defined by the Reformation of the UEE and its military forces after a civil uprising/war. 2946 to the Present, while shifting towards a Retribution era, which I would define by its first use in combat and if more ships like it are built to say it's a shift in doctrine. The Militia era focused on militias and the decentralization of military structures within the UEE. Militias provide quick reactions to alien and domestic incursions and serve as a check on power should another Messer appear. I would like to know how much you agree or disagree with this shifting of the periodization.
To answer the first question there are two reasons for the shift. The first being that we lack a ton of hard information, mostly vague illusions to what was available at the time and a lack of hard evidence in terms of even the ships they had and the make up so I can only give a high level overview. Second being this is a video on a video on a fictional naval force which was already over 40 minutes long which I knew was going to be the niche of the niche for viewers. As for the eras, as a historian you know we love our made up periods that don't fully encompass all aspects and then argue over the definite times and themes of these eras constantly. I wanted to present the eras more as a general flow of the changes of how humanity used it's Navy. So I simplified the eras to a degree to get the general gist of how the Navy went from relying on large capital ships to fighters over time to explain why fighter squadrons are so omnipresent in the Navy today. There was a doctrinal shift on how humanity used it's fighter and bomber forces during and after the 2nd Tevarin War. The Gladius was seen as a propaganda piece first and foremost, relegated to escort duties and system defense before the war, but after the war it became the main ship the UEE Navy used to to throw first at any opponent. For instance the first to respond to the initial Vanduul raids was the 36th Squadron, a squadron that had initially been set up to train other pilots on how to use the Gladius and had become famous during the 2nd Tevarin War for their effectiveness. They even developed the first tactics to deal with the Vanduul effectively called the Carry and Leap Maneuver. So the Navy did pivot its fleet makeup around this time towards a hybrid fighter and large ship combination. As for the Squadron Era it's a combination of propaganda, Aegis Dynamics becoming Persona Non Grata, and a breakdown of logistics. It was just too expensive to maintain a grand fleet like was present in the Messer Era in a period when even the UEE couldn't even enforce it's will on multiple systems that had been part of the UEE political sphere for centuries. Systems like Idris and Charon either split with the UEE during the revolution or had Messer holdouts which refused to give up power. So if the Navy couldn't even bring its forces to bare to support popular rebellions or prevent chaotic separatists it's clear they weren't in any shape to support large vessels. The Navy was basically neutered and it was far less expensive to design, build, and support a squadron of fighters or bombers than it was to keep cruisers and battleships flying when much of what made up the ship in terms of even spare parts were from companies that didn't exist anymore because of the purges in the post revolutionary government. As I said the eras and names are made up mostly to try and allow people to understand the shifts that took place and explain what was going on at the time these ships were built and why they were built. It classify the New UEE period as the militia era isn't entirely wrong though towards the latter half of the 29th Century the need for militia declined. Militias were needed in the immediate aftermath, just after the Fall of Caliban, and sometime in the early 2910's. However just after the Fall of Caliban the Bengal seemed to take center stage, mostly because its emphasis on massive numbers of squadrons of fighters and bombers it could bring to bare. I would say the Squadron Era is still relevant though could use some more defining, as with all the Eras there were multiple things happening all over human space and with more information as to the different levels of doctrine it would be easier to define. Something I can return to in the future as more info is available.
@@TheAstroHistorian Thanks for this excellent response. I agree that there is an overarching narrative that moves from all gun-cobbled-together battleships similar to Pre-Dreadnoughts to Dreadnought and finally gets to the period we are currently in with WWII in space. Using real history informs the SC universe a lot. However, it's important to remember that it's not a 1 to 1 comparison, nor is it linear because some things appear in SC before other things do in our current reality. I apologize that much of this is just a reiteration of the original tome I wrote; I missed some context, so I wrote another extended response. (In reality, it just gives me an excuse to write again because I haven't done so in a while; my skills are rusty, and I need practice.) Ultimately, there's a lot more emphasis on decentralization after the fall of the Messers, which is justified by using symbolic language from the Tevarin Wars. Specifically, when regarding the First Tevarin War and the transition to the Second, I Interpret the UPE at the start of the First War as the human fleet being most similar to that of the British fleet at the Battle of Jutland (the first naval battle where aircraft played a role) versus the Tevarin Fleet which operated more similarly to an American or Japanese Interwar carrier fleet. Before the first war ended, the UPE Navy grew into something similar to our timeline's early interwar carriers, but with the understanding of the doctrine developed by Billy Mitchal rather than the doctrine used at the time of carriers just being used to support big gun ships rather than the other way around. The leadership of the navy in the SC universe knew that carrier-based strike craft represented the future and were furiously trying to play catchup with the Tevarin, who, even with their limited resources, remained technologically ahead of human fighters. Unlike our timeline, where the era of the all-big-gun battleship came to a close well into the interwar era, the SC change happens during the first war. It's a revolution vs. the evolution of doctrine that occurred in the second war. What's great about fictional universes is that, like in real life, we have very limited sources from which to draw and interpret the data. This can lead to disagreements and debates that make the lore a lot more fun. The period you've called the Squadron Era is all about propaganda rather than doctrine because, under the Messers, the Empire grew stagnant and is currently in a state of decline. The Messers were ousted, but the Navy poured way too many resources into fighting them, and there might have been a full-scale civil war that no one likes to talk about anymore. (It is very common in many countries to avoid discussing losing or winning a civil war.) Additionally, Synthworld has pulled so many resources away from the economy that a runaway effect is underway. The new regime isn't as revolutionary as the propaganda stories show us since most of the Messer state structure still exists in the UEE. There isn't a push to return to the UPE or form a new government. They gave more agency to citizens of the Empire by voting for the Imperator rather than following the family lineage of the Messers. It is more akin to regime change than a revolution. The elites who opposed Messer still have power, while the elites who supported Messer, like Ageis Dynamics, are, as you say, persona non grata. The leadership of the nonrevolution knows how precarious their situation is, and propaganda is a cheap and effective way of shifting focus from real problems that can't be solved to the extraordinary. Featuring squadrons in propaganda is effective because Messer used his military record to secure legitimacy for his revolution. The new regime relies on the techniques that individual pilots used in the days after the Second Tevarin War to elevate their political careers in the new Messer government as a way to foment nostalgia for an era when humanity wasn't suffering defeat after defeat, like the Empire is with the Vanduul. However, they couldn't focus on individual pilots because they didn't want a repeat of Messer, so they contributed the actions to the squadron. Since the Naval budget has been hammered, defensive formations have mainly been handed over to militia units responsible for guarding their home planets and systems. At the same time, offensive forces rely on quick-reaction carrier-based forces. The politicians aren't short of heroic tales of the squadrons because they do all the super dangerous stuff. Again, circling back to history here, it closely resembles the division of the Roman Legions with the Auxilria. The Legons got the glory while the Auxilria did the specific tasks that the Legionnaires could never do, like riding horses, shooting bows, and carrying a spear aka. All the stuff that the Romans believed was beneath their glorious Legionares. Since the government can't afford to maintain ships, they've opened them up for sale, which has supplied the militia units with hardware just as good as the UEE Navy. Civilians also have access to this equipment, and that's important because it is the hope of the propaganda campaigns to inspire private individuals, especially veterans, to join the CDF or other militia organizations and take on the role of the Navy, freeing up critical resources to fight the Vanduul. That gives the backbone of the UEE, the Militia, and all the crap jobs so that the squadrons can ride off in the sunset like the heroes they pretend to be. You're right. Since the end of the Messer regime, there has been a shift toward squadron-level organization. Unfortunately, I don't know how squadrons are organized and deployed (If you have a video about that topic, I will gladly watch it). We know Squadron 42 has at least two fighters on board the UEES Stanton, but surely that can only be part of the squadron. They have to operate spread out across various ships and facilities. However, that presents its own problems with the chain of command because that could mean that the squadron commander could override the orders of a ship's captain. If the primacy is on the squadron, then the doctrine you've laid out is correct. That odd chain of command is not without historical precedence because onboard Spanish ships during the age of sail, army commanders could order naval captains to change course or use specific tactics in battle even though they knew very little to nothing about ship combat. Squadrons could include their logistical elements so the UEES Stanton could be assigned to Squadron 42 as part of a fleet element. In this case, that command structure problem isn't one; it is just a smaller formation of ships rather than the formation of small ships.
I am a very early supporter of the game with I think a dozen ships. Unable to play as my current computer has only 500 GB total capacity and I am fighting Microsoft to even connect with most of the games I was playing before my home-built monster refused to update the Microsoft software, Built 11 years ago It had 2 First generation GForce Titans similar generation motherboard 64 GB RAM Intel 7 CPU with 6 Hard drives some replaced with SATA drives over time several changes to the prime Chipset. Last fall it crashed I loaded a copy of Windows Ten to replace the Windows 8 load which had failed to update. A month later the C drive short-circuited internally so I have a Intel 5 level MSI gaming computer with limited drive space. Also, I am still blocked from most game website for those I own only MechWarrior 5 and Armored Warfare are accessible. I cannot even connect with my commercial level E-Mail accounts as Outlook has blocked all attempts to connect the accounts. I enjoyed your presentation.
Very good material! My squad mates often rely on me for lore knowledge and theory. Videos like these truly help me get a better sense of the process of evolution through the SC universe. Thank you for your time and research. Much respect!
so doctrine can best be boiled down to this: its how militaries use their equipment, man power and tactics to achieve their goals, to give a very rough example an air force might decide that for their air combat doctrine all their counties F-16 squadrons must contain at least 3 airframes with a loadout meant exclusively for targeting ground troops because their studies have showed that this is common practice among their air forces anyway and due to the nature of their country having those three pure ground pounders is worth the sacrifice in the air to air capability of the squadrons. However doctrine as you said is meant to be applied where relevant, to tie this back to my example, while this hypothetical doctrine may say every 3 aircraft need to have a ground attack loadout the local commander may decide that to follow that doctrine means not achieving his goals in his area of the front and so he says all of his squadrons will run full air to air loadouts.
@@TheAstroHistorian ah ya think so … I would beg to differ to say that as of current v3.25-PU that the *Ares* -IS- a good _Place-Holder_ but I would say that true representation of the *A-10* in the game hasn’t arrived -yet!- But just like in _“Real Life”_ when the you’re deep in the sauce and be stuck in the kitchen with worrying doubts on successfully cooking a memorable satisfying meal for your family enjoy without any disappointments. Suddenly, a very familiar & distinctively pleasant sound of your brother’s vehicle heading in your direction. arriving with impeccable timing, your big brother from on high sensed your dilemma and has brought you all of the missing ingredients to make the flavor of sauce you were working on to have that “BAM! POW! Popping flavor that of success that everyone will have everyone talking about for days on end.. When your brother shows up in an *A-10* he’s is never late, always right on time!
Yes, they have been adding lore to the game since the project was announced. Writers can write more stuff than devs can build over the course of 12 years.
You say it's realistic for ship designs to be almost a century old, give examples of designs that are 40 or 50 years old, but the Gladius is *375 years old.* Remind me how many military aircraft are still in service from ~1650? No amount of apologetics is going to make that not silly.
You are entirely missing the point of the analogy. Another example I didn't use is the M2 Browning, was released in 1919, over 100 years ago. In 1919 most homes didn't have electric lighting in the US let alone the kind of high tech we have today. Why isn't that replaced? Because it does the job good enough and it is easy to find parts. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If a ship was made in 1650 that was just as good today as it was then we sure as hell would be using it. Given the vast distances of space and the restrictions from AI and the impact of the 300 year rule of the Messers it's not hard to see why using something like the Gladius makes sense. There are a lot of that frame and they still work. Why spend a shit ton of money replacing a frame that you don't need to.
@@TheAstroHistorianSure, if there was a ship hull from 375 years ago that was as good as modern designs, they'd still be using it. Why do you suppose that didn't happen? Might it have something to do with the 375 year part? Their lore isn't even consistent with their other lore. Okay, so they can just bolt the latest sports styling package onto a 375 year old hull and it's as good as a modern fighter. So why did they have to scrap a centuries newer design (the stiletto) to get shields working? They had to replace that line with the Avenger, which they then had to replace with the Hornet because they couldn't upgrade the maneuverability. (Understandable given that the geniuses at UEE ship design decided to put a small studio apartment and a cargo hold into their carrier based INTERCEPTOR FFS) And now they've had to replace the Hornet with the Hornet MK2. Suddenly ships don't seem infinitely upgradeable. So which set of lore doesn't make sense? Gotta pick one.
@@Teiz83the MK II is a naked money grab utterly inconsistent with all prior lore. Or rather, it’s perfectly consistent with lore, but inconsistent with all prior discussions of how lore will be implemented: Individual planes in the F-15 EX series are brand new airframes, but they’re still more or less an F-15. No F-15A from 1972’s first flight is still in service though. So it’s perfectly reasonable that the Hornet should have multiple Marks / Models, but treating it as this new from scratch ship at a mechanical level is way off from all prior SC actions on ships. Hence, naked money grab. As to your 375 year ago point: A) there are still wooden sailing designs that are more or less identical to 375 years ago, particularly at river and creek size sailing vessels. It is possible to reach a fully optimized design for a given purpose, with only materials and internal systems improving (better sail materials, computer sat-navigation instead of some guy with a talent for directions, etc). B) You’ve chosen the 375 years that represent the most radical technological development in the entirety of human history thus far, and failing some truly fundamental change in our understanding of physics, likely the most radical development of any 375 years in humanity’s future. We will continue to iterate, but we are already in touching distance of several atomic and quantum physical limits in both computing and materials science. The SC lore does not report any outsized tech development during those 375 years remotely akin to the dev we’ve had just in computational power: we went from individual humans with quill and parchment to prototyping quantum computers. C) We have a good analog for that kind of incremental refinement of foundational technology in today’s equipment. The F-22 first flight was in 1997. In that time, no other airframe design has emerged that could possibly match its raw capabilities, much less exceed it. Despite all we’ve gained since then, it remains our unchallenged ultimate stealth air superiority craft for atmospheric use. The F-35 has better electronics, flight computers, data interlinking, etc, but that’s all internals-internals which we are most likely going to go ahead and upgrade our F-22’s to in the next few years-the actual airframe is less capable than the F-22. It’s slower, less maneuverable, less stealthy, and has less range. But it is cheaper, which is good. Just as the F-15EX would look like straight up sci-fi magic to the first F-15A pilot were the EX teleported back in time, the Gladius of today would be unrecognizable in terms of refinement and system ability to the builders of the original. 375 years is a long time to test and refine a design. You get a lot of improvements in that kind of time, and there is little reason not to do so unless some fundamental new tech renders the design obsolete with a foundational deficiency. But shield tech, quantum tech, and weapons tech haven’t really changed in 375 years except to get better and smaller. IRL, we are already catching glimpses of the electron’s physical property limits for silicone computing. Our computers will keep getting more refined for a while, things like AMD’s X3D, and intel’s unique core architectures. They’ll get a bit faster iteratively, but they’ll still fit inside the existing electronic spaces in a F-22 for decades, and it remains the best airframe design until we either wear them all out, or some new material Science utterly alters what an airframe can be.
@@piedpiper1172 > there are still wooden sailing designs that are more or less identical to 375 years ago How many of them are combat ships? > You’ve chosen the 375 years that represent the most radical technological development in the entirety of human history thus far, and failing some truly fundamental change in our understanding of physics, likely the most radical development of any 375 years in humanity’s future. No, I haven't. I've picked the most recent 375 years. The most recent 375 years just happen to be the most significant years technological development of human history. You know what the most significant 375 years of technological development were before that? It was the prior 375 years. You know what the most significant years were before that? The prior 375 years. Notice the pattern developing here? > The SC lore does not report any outsized tech development during those 375 years remotely akin to the dev we’ve had just in computational power Yes, it does. All the technological exchange with the Banu postdate the introduction of the Gladius. > The F-22 first flight was in 1997. So... not 1600 then? What were they flying in 1600? All of your arguments - which are not good arguments - that it's reasonable for the Gladius to have remained in service for almost 400 years (and it's not even the oldest combat ship currently in service with the UEN, the Retaliator is even older. And we've seen pictures of a first-gen Retaliator which looks identical to the modern one) completely fall down in the face of the fact that there are constantly new ships being introduced. If UEE tech has reached a point where it's normal for ships to remain unchanged for centuries, then why are there also constantly new ships? The F7A Mk2 aside, the F8A is new, the Scorpius is new, the Sabre and its variants are new, the Redeemer is new, military Starlifters are new, the Eclipse is new. And that's just the ones we know about, and ignoring some of the nonsense in the SC timeline like the Hurricane and Gladiator both being older than the company that created them. So why, in a world where it makes perfect sense for 400+ year old ship designs to still be state of the art in the military, are most of the military ships in the game ~50 years old or less?
I love the jab at Fallout, right at the start. Gold.
Browning M2 Machine gun: in service for over a century now and no plans to retire it.
Isn’t it being replaced by the SIG M338 though?
@@feariex Looks like the M338 is only going to be used by special forces and is a Medium Machine Gun. The M2 is a heavy machine gun and the latest version, the M2A1 was only introduced in 2010 (complimenting the underlying point, that designs DO get updated and modernised).
Or just the M1911. Still in service with some country's millitary. After more than a century. And it's modernization of M1911A1 that was first manifactured in 1924, and that is still being manufactured today.
The Brown Bess remained in active military service from 1722 to 1867, about 145 years, and variants are still manufactured today as hobby muskets. I will bet the M2 will beat the Bess's service life.
@@sirtrafalgar1 Indeed. I suspect just like the Brown Bess, the M2 Browning will probably only be replaced by a new cartridge design or new gun powder chemistry or something to that effect that renders the bullet obsolete.
Please, please keep doing these! I'm constantly dismayed by how little time I'm currently able to afford to following the excellent lore of SC. Your coverage more than makes up for it and I'm always elated in finding a new one to listen to. 💜
I have to admit, I wasn't sure what to think of this topic at first. It sounded extremely dry to me. Turned out I was wrong. Awesome video Paul.
If you want a perfect example of older vehicles being used in modern militaries, look no further than the Canadian Air Force. The CP-140 had it's 40th anniversary of service a few years back, the gov't is saying life extension until 2035, but it'll be around 2050 before they leave service is my guess.
edit: just ran the math, they've already been flying 45 years...
Waiting to see my first Vanduul clan. Long live the Empire!
This video is proof we need PvE Arena Commander scenario modes where we get to reenact famous battles from the UPE/UEE (except the whole bombing civilians thing).
Everyone wants the glory but no one wants to do the dirtywork ehh?
There are no xenos civilians. There are only xenos and purged xenos.
As the UAE is a staunch believer in essential human dignity and equality, it is happy to recognize the identity of any humans who freely choose to identify themselves with the xenos and will treat them as they wish: xeno scum.
Your videos are awesome I'm happy to support the channel.
I appreciate that!
Another Masterpiece that blows me away. I wonder if even the Lore Team is aware of this perfectly constructed review of their Lore?!
Wonderful stuff. I am re-watching the parts I missed since I came in late during the Premier. Extremely good stuff.😊
I’ve been scrounging the tube for lore about sc. your channel is absolutely nuts and I appreciate the heck out of this adds a lot of depth to my game at least thanks man good work!
Top notch, for starting the day With these lore cookies. Keep up the good work 😊
Very good ! thx for the ton of work this video meant.
Your vid’s are amazing man, i love listening at work or in traffic. Keep up the great work!
Such good work, excellently written and presented! Love these.
Love these videos man
Great video! Thanks for the history lesson. A very interesting topic.
Epic history lesson . Epic edits and loved it . I hope you do many more.
2hrs and 627 views, nice done Paul. Love watch ur channel grow.
This is just what I needed, everything collated and presented in a well thought out and easy to understand format. Really helpful, great work!
Presented, my interpretation of SQ42 is comparative to the Bastard Squad.
You should collaborate with dracinfel
Top tier. Keep it up o7
Nicely done, Paul. You covered it well, and given the source material and the holes in it -- Outstanding :)
I'd love a video on the ranks and roles of each military unit
This is a fun video... Thx for this summary it paints an interesting picture of the SC Lore... Looking forward to more videos... Maybe something similar with the alien races (if there is enough lore data to make one)
Damn I love the videos about the UEE Navy/Military stuff. Gets me that more excited for SQ42 AND The oh so MIGHTY Polaris!
Absolutely love these! On a side note, can we expect to see warhammer 40k lore on here some time? I just got into it and you seem to be the perfect person for the intro to the universe!
Wait so Squadron 42 is basically the bad batch of the UEE? Great video Paul. Always such great information and presentation.
Thank you for sharing the history in such an interesting and informative way
Want to see the first Anvil capital ship.
Amazing video thank you so much
A fantastic video!
thanks for the heads up
Great video
I can give that doctoral thesis even though I think that was meant as don't do it, but I am sure you know that people like us can't avoid it because context is everything.
I am a maritime historian, and the definition of doctrine used is absolutely correct within the framework of our current understanding. However, there are typically three levels of military doctrine: the grand strategic view, the strategic, and the tactical. I'll use a period I am familiar with, the late eighteenth century, to give an example of Royal Naval doctrine. The grand strategic view of the Napoleonic era was that the Royal Navy maintained a fleet double that of the primary foe, the French. A massive bureaucratic structure had to be implemented to keep that fleet. The strategic view of the Royal Navy required fleets to blockade ports on the continent and adopt a policy of containment. The tactical doctrine adopted by the admirals commanding the fleet followed Nelson's lead and sought a decisive victory. Some parts of this video did an excellent job of the first two but left out the tactical view, while when talking about the more recent history, you prioritized the tactical over both strategic views.
So, I am getting to the question. Was this due to a lack of source material, or was there some other reason for the change in focus?
Also, I have some responses about your periodization of the eras because they need to express the changes that reflect the reasons that caused the doctrinal shift or how it changed. Most of them are name changes to make clear what drives the doctrinal shift, while others combine eras because there is a slow evolution throughout the era and are marked by an event that forces dramatic change rapidly. 2380-2388 could have been combined into the Unification Wars era because many structural issues remained, but the only changes were in response to battlefield conditions presented by the conflict. 2389-2437 I see as more of the Frontier era because it centers on expanding humanity's reach beyond the confines of Sol and Croshaw. I combine the later two periods of your police era together, 2438-2530, to form the First Contact era because it's bookended by the two main first contact scenarios and its focus on building up the fleet to maintain policing operations and now to face advanced alien threats. 2530-2541's designation as the Heavy Fleet era works, but then again, I see this as a gap in our historical knowledge at this point that exists right before the First Tevarin War. 2541-2546, marked by the First Tevarin War; as this is humanity's first major conflict since the Unification Wars, it represents a sea change in doctrine to meet the threat of the Tevarin doctrine.
I have a couple of side notes here before I continue with my manuscript. The enemy's doctrine influences the doctrine of the UPE more than technological shifts and often pushes technological change rather than the other way around. I don't mark out a specific period for the second Tevarin War because this conflict resulted from political failures during the Messer era rather than a failure of doctrine. The doctrine developed during the first war remained during the second war. Still, technological advancements of humanity lagged behind, and this can all be attributed to the intelligence failures of the Messer regime since they were focused on stomping out internal descent rather than on alien threats.
You've got 2547-2603, absolutely spot on. It's defined by a cold war, and I would keep that going longer because despite other changes that Vanduul's doctrine shifts, the Xi'an represents a threat with their own doctrine that the UEE needs to counter. 2604-2792 Nimble Fleet era works here, although I might have gone with the Quick Reaction era because while it focused on nimble ships, it also created the idea of responding quickly to the Vanduul threat. It's probably a continuation of the Perry Line era, but it's in that odd period that overlaps because one side of the empire needs to have one doctrine and the other a different set of doctrines. 2792-2945, I am not sure it works as the Squadron era, although this could be my lack of understanding here; the focus on Squadrons in the media during this period, I think, is propaganda to allow people who just overthrew the Messers to see that individuals can effect massive changes on history. This era is defined by the Reformation of the UEE and its military forces after a civil uprising/war. 2946 to the Present, while shifting towards a Retribution era, which I would define by its first use in combat and if more ships like it are built to say it's a shift in doctrine. The Militia era focused on militias and the decentralization of military structures within the UEE. Militias provide quick reactions to alien and domestic incursions and serve as a check on power should another Messer appear.
I would like to know how much you agree or disagree with this shifting of the periodization.
To answer the first question there are two reasons for the shift. The first being that we lack a ton of hard information, mostly vague illusions to what was available at the time and a lack of hard evidence in terms of even the ships they had and the make up so I can only give a high level overview. Second being this is a video on a video on a fictional naval force which was already over 40 minutes long which I knew was going to be the niche of the niche for viewers.
As for the eras, as a historian you know we love our made up periods that don't fully encompass all aspects and then argue over the definite times and themes of these eras constantly. I wanted to present the eras more as a general flow of the changes of how humanity used it's Navy. So I simplified the eras to a degree to get the general gist of how the Navy went from relying on large capital ships to fighters over time to explain why fighter squadrons are so omnipresent in the Navy today.
There was a doctrinal shift on how humanity used it's fighter and bomber forces during and after the 2nd Tevarin War. The Gladius was seen as a propaganda piece first and foremost, relegated to escort duties and system defense before the war, but after the war it became the main ship the UEE Navy used to to throw first at any opponent.
For instance the first to respond to the initial Vanduul raids was the 36th Squadron, a squadron that had initially been set up to train other pilots on how to use the Gladius and had become famous during the 2nd Tevarin War for their effectiveness. They even developed the first tactics to deal with the Vanduul effectively called the Carry and Leap Maneuver. So the Navy did pivot its fleet makeup around this time towards a hybrid fighter and large ship combination.
As for the Squadron Era it's a combination of propaganda, Aegis Dynamics becoming Persona Non Grata, and a breakdown of logistics. It was just too expensive to maintain a grand fleet like was present in the Messer Era in a period when even the UEE couldn't even enforce it's will on multiple systems that had been part of the UEE political sphere for centuries. Systems like Idris and Charon either split with the UEE during the revolution or had Messer holdouts which refused to give up power. So if the Navy couldn't even bring its forces to bare to support popular rebellions or prevent chaotic separatists it's clear they weren't in any shape to support large vessels.
The Navy was basically neutered and it was far less expensive to design, build, and support a squadron of fighters or bombers than it was to keep cruisers and battleships flying when much of what made up the ship in terms of even spare parts were from companies that didn't exist anymore because of the purges in the post revolutionary government.
As I said the eras and names are made up mostly to try and allow people to understand the shifts that took place and explain what was going on at the time these ships were built and why they were built. It classify the New UEE period as the militia era isn't entirely wrong though towards the latter half of the 29th Century the need for militia declined. Militias were needed in the immediate aftermath, just after the Fall of Caliban, and sometime in the early 2910's. However just after the Fall of Caliban the Bengal seemed to take center stage, mostly because its emphasis on massive numbers of squadrons of fighters and bombers it could bring to bare.
I would say the Squadron Era is still relevant though could use some more defining, as with all the Eras there were multiple things happening all over human space and with more information as to the different levels of doctrine it would be easier to define. Something I can return to in the future as more info is available.
@@TheAstroHistorian Thanks for this excellent response.
I agree that there is an overarching narrative that moves from all gun-cobbled-together battleships similar to Pre-Dreadnoughts to Dreadnought and finally gets to the period we are currently in with WWII in space. Using real history informs the SC universe a lot. However, it's important to remember that it's not a 1 to 1 comparison, nor is it linear because some things appear in SC before other things do in our current reality. I apologize that much of this is just a reiteration of the original tome I wrote; I missed some context, so I wrote another extended response. (In reality, it just gives me an excuse to write again because I haven't done so in a while; my skills are rusty, and I need practice.) Ultimately, there's a lot more emphasis on decentralization after the fall of the Messers, which is justified by using symbolic language from the Tevarin Wars.
Specifically, when regarding the First Tevarin War and the transition to the Second, I Interpret the UPE at the start of the First War as the human fleet being most similar to that of the British fleet at the Battle of Jutland (the first naval battle where aircraft played a role) versus the Tevarin Fleet which operated more similarly to an American or Japanese Interwar carrier fleet. Before the first war ended, the UPE Navy grew into something similar to our timeline's early interwar carriers, but with the understanding of the doctrine developed by Billy Mitchal rather than the doctrine used at the time of carriers just being used to support big gun ships rather than the other way around. The leadership of the navy in the SC universe knew that carrier-based strike craft represented the future and were furiously trying to play catchup with the Tevarin, who, even with their limited resources, remained technologically ahead of human fighters. Unlike our timeline, where the era of the all-big-gun battleship came to a close well into the interwar era, the SC change happens during the first war. It's a revolution vs. the evolution of doctrine that occurred in the second war.
What's great about fictional universes is that, like in real life, we have very limited sources from which to draw and interpret the data. This can lead to disagreements and debates that make the lore a lot more fun.
The period you've called the Squadron Era is all about propaganda rather than doctrine because, under the Messers, the Empire grew stagnant and is currently in a state of decline. The Messers were ousted, but the Navy poured way too many resources into fighting them, and there might have been a full-scale civil war that no one likes to talk about anymore. (It is very common in many countries to avoid discussing losing or winning a civil war.) Additionally, Synthworld has pulled so many resources away from the economy that a runaway effect is underway. The new regime isn't as revolutionary as the propaganda stories show us since most of the Messer state structure still exists in the UEE. There isn't a push to return to the UPE or form a new government. They gave more agency to citizens of the Empire by voting for the Imperator rather than following the family lineage of the Messers. It is more akin to regime change than a revolution. The elites who opposed Messer still have power, while the elites who supported Messer, like Ageis Dynamics, are, as you say, persona non grata.
The leadership of the nonrevolution knows how precarious their situation is, and propaganda is a cheap and effective way of shifting focus from real problems that can't be solved to the extraordinary. Featuring squadrons in propaganda is effective because Messer used his military record to secure legitimacy for his revolution. The new regime relies on the techniques that individual pilots used in the days after the Second Tevarin War to elevate their political careers in the new Messer government as a way to foment nostalgia for an era when humanity wasn't suffering defeat after defeat, like the Empire is with the Vanduul. However, they couldn't focus on individual pilots because they didn't want a repeat of Messer, so they contributed the actions to the squadron.
Since the Naval budget has been hammered, defensive formations have mainly been handed over to militia units responsible for guarding their home planets and systems. At the same time, offensive forces rely on quick-reaction carrier-based forces. The politicians aren't short of heroic tales of the squadrons because they do all the super dangerous stuff. Again, circling back to history here, it closely resembles the division of the Roman Legions with the Auxilria. The Legons got the glory while the Auxilria did the specific tasks that the Legionnaires could never do, like riding horses, shooting bows, and carrying a spear aka. All the stuff that the Romans believed was beneath their glorious Legionares. Since the government can't afford to maintain ships, they've opened them up for sale, which has supplied the militia units with hardware just as good as the UEE Navy. Civilians also have access to this equipment, and that's important because it is the hope of the propaganda campaigns to inspire private individuals, especially veterans, to join the CDF or other militia organizations and take on the role of the Navy, freeing up critical resources to fight the Vanduul. That gives the backbone of the UEE, the Militia, and all the crap jobs so that the squadrons can ride off in the sunset like the heroes they pretend to be.
You're right. Since the end of the Messer regime, there has been a shift toward squadron-level organization. Unfortunately, I don't know how squadrons are organized and deployed (If you have a video about that topic, I will gladly watch it). We know Squadron 42 has at least two fighters on board the UEES Stanton, but surely that can only be part of the squadron. They have to operate spread out across various ships and facilities. However, that presents its own problems with the chain of command because that could mean that the squadron commander could override the orders of a ship's captain. If the primacy is on the squadron, then the doctrine you've laid out is correct. That odd chain of command is not without historical precedence because onboard Spanish ships during the age of sail, army commanders could order naval captains to change course or use specific tactics in battle even though they knew very little to nothing about ship combat. Squadrons could include their logistical elements so the UEES Stanton could be assigned to Squadron 42 as part of a fleet element. In this case, that command structure problem isn't one; it is just a smaller formation of ships rather than the formation of small ships.
Awesome info 🤘
It is great!
8:10 Ironically, militaries are usually much better trained to avoid escalation in civilian areas than police are, in the real world.
I am a very early supporter of the game with I think a dozen ships. Unable to play as my current computer has only 500 GB total capacity and I am fighting Microsoft to even connect with most of the games I was playing before my home-built monster refused to update the Microsoft software, Built 11 years ago It had 2 First generation GForce Titans similar generation motherboard 64 GB RAM Intel 7 CPU with 6 Hard drives some replaced with SATA drives over time several changes to the prime Chipset. Last fall it crashed I loaded a copy of Windows Ten to replace the Windows 8 load which had failed to update. A month later the C drive short-circuited internally so I have a Intel 5 level MSI gaming computer with limited drive space. Also, I am still blocked from most game website for those I own only MechWarrior 5 and Armored Warfare are accessible. I cannot even connect with my commercial level E-Mail accounts as Outlook has blocked all attempts to connect the accounts.
I enjoyed your presentation.
Radking, hey you play fallout too, nice
heres where a command ship could come into play and ship formations or a command ship module.
Very good material! My squad mates often rely on me for lore knowledge and theory. Videos like these truly help me get a better sense of the process of evolution through the SC universe. Thank you for your time and research. Much respect!
"War always changes"
so doctrine can best be boiled down to this: its how militaries use their equipment, man power and tactics to achieve their goals, to give a very rough example an air force might decide that for their air combat doctrine all their counties F-16 squadrons must contain at least 3 airframes with a loadout meant exclusively for targeting ground troops because their studies have showed that this is common practice among their air forces anyway and due to the nature of their country having those three pure ground pounders is worth the sacrifice in the air to air capability of the squadrons.
However doctrine as you said is meant to be applied where relevant, to tie this back to my example, while this hypothetical doctrine may say every 3 aircraft need to have a ground attack loadout the local commander may decide that to follow that doctrine means not achieving his goals in his area of the front and so he says all of his squadrons will run full air to air loadouts.
I would love to see you do some eve online lore
War always changes :)
The problem behind invading any uee space is that there is a gun behind every Space Rock
Also, players will always find a way to win
@@strongback6550 At any cost.
as I watch this … my mind is open to discussion about which *SC* fighter spaceship takes inspiration from the *A-10* ?
Ares
@@TheAstroHistorian ah ya think so … I would beg to differ to say that as of current v3.25-PU that the *Ares* -IS- a good _Place-Holder_ but I would say that true representation of the *A-10* in the game hasn’t arrived -yet!-
But just like in _“Real Life”_ when the you’re deep in the sauce and be stuck in the kitchen with worrying doubts on successfully cooking a memorable satisfying meal for your family enjoy without any disappointments. Suddenly, a very familiar & distinctively pleasant sound of your brother’s vehicle heading in your direction. arriving with impeccable timing, your big brother from on high sensed your dilemma and has brought you all of the missing ingredients to make the flavor of sauce you were working on to have that “BAM! POW! Popping flavor that of success that everyone will have everyone talking about for days on end..
When your brother shows up in an *A-10* he’s is never late, always right on time!
There is mote lore than game.
Yes, they have been adding lore to the game since the project was announced. Writers can write more stuff than devs can build over the course of 12 years.
o7
I disagree because... WAR, WAR NEVER CHANGES!!!
You say it's realistic for ship designs to be almost a century old, give examples of designs that are 40 or 50 years old, but the Gladius is *375 years old.* Remind me how many military aircraft are still in service from ~1650? No amount of apologetics is going to make that not silly.
You are entirely missing the point of the analogy. Another example I didn't use is the M2 Browning, was released in 1919, over 100 years ago. In 1919 most homes didn't have electric lighting in the US let alone the kind of high tech we have today. Why isn't that replaced? Because it does the job good enough and it is easy to find parts. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If a ship was made in 1650 that was just as good today as it was then we sure as hell would be using it.
Given the vast distances of space and the restrictions from AI and the impact of the 300 year rule of the Messers it's not hard to see why using something like the Gladius makes sense. There are a lot of that frame and they still work. Why spend a shit ton of money replacing a frame that you don't need to.
@@TheAstroHistorianSure, if there was a ship hull from 375 years ago that was as good as modern designs, they'd still be using it. Why do you suppose that didn't happen? Might it have something to do with the 375 year part?
Their lore isn't even consistent with their other lore. Okay, so they can just bolt the latest sports styling package onto a 375 year old hull and it's as good as a modern fighter. So why did they have to scrap a centuries newer design (the stiletto) to get shields working? They had to replace that line with the Avenger, which they then had to replace with the Hornet because they couldn't upgrade the maneuverability. (Understandable given that the geniuses at UEE ship design decided to put a small studio apartment and a cargo hold into their carrier based INTERCEPTOR FFS) And now they've had to replace the Hornet with the Hornet MK2. Suddenly ships don't seem infinitely upgradeable. So which set of lore doesn't make sense? Gotta pick one.
@@Teiz83the MK II is a naked money grab utterly inconsistent with all prior lore.
Or rather, it’s perfectly consistent with lore, but inconsistent with all prior discussions of how lore will be implemented:
Individual planes in the F-15 EX series are brand new airframes, but they’re still more or less an F-15. No F-15A from 1972’s first flight is still in service though.
So it’s perfectly reasonable that the Hornet should have multiple Marks / Models, but treating it as this new from scratch ship at a mechanical level is way off from all prior SC actions on ships. Hence, naked money grab.
As to your 375 year ago point:
A) there are still wooden sailing designs that are more or less identical to 375 years ago, particularly at river and creek size sailing vessels. It is possible to reach a fully optimized design for a given purpose, with only materials and internal systems improving (better sail materials, computer sat-navigation instead of some guy with a talent for directions, etc).
B) You’ve chosen the 375 years that represent the most radical technological development in the entirety of human history thus far, and failing some truly fundamental change in our understanding of physics, likely the most radical development of any 375 years in humanity’s future. We will continue to iterate, but we are already in touching distance of several atomic and quantum physical limits in both computing and materials science.
The SC lore does not report any outsized tech development during those 375 years remotely akin to the dev we’ve had just in computational power: we went from individual humans with quill and parchment to prototyping quantum computers.
C) We have a good analog for that kind of incremental refinement of foundational technology in today’s equipment. The F-22 first flight was in 1997. In that time, no other airframe design has emerged that could possibly match its raw capabilities, much less exceed it. Despite all we’ve gained since then, it remains our unchallenged ultimate stealth air superiority craft for atmospheric use.
The F-35 has better electronics, flight computers, data interlinking, etc, but that’s all internals-internals which we are most likely going to go ahead and upgrade our F-22’s to in the next few years-the actual airframe is less capable than the F-22. It’s slower, less maneuverable, less stealthy, and has less range. But it is cheaper, which is good.
Just as the F-15EX would look like straight up sci-fi magic to the first F-15A pilot were the EX teleported back in time, the Gladius of today would be unrecognizable in terms of refinement and system ability to the builders of the original.
375 years is a long time to test and refine a design. You get a lot of improvements in that kind of time, and there is little reason not to do so unless some fundamental new tech renders the design obsolete with a foundational deficiency.
But shield tech, quantum tech, and weapons tech haven’t really changed in 375 years except to get better and smaller. IRL, we are already catching glimpses of the electron’s physical property limits for silicone computing.
Our computers will keep getting more refined for a while, things like AMD’s X3D, and intel’s unique core architectures. They’ll get a bit faster iteratively, but they’ll still fit inside the existing electronic spaces in a F-22 for decades, and it remains the best airframe design until we either wear them all out, or some new material Science utterly alters what an airframe can be.
@@piedpiper1172
> there are still wooden sailing designs that are more or less identical to 375 years ago
How many of them are combat ships?
> You’ve chosen the 375 years that represent the most radical technological development in the entirety of human history thus far, and failing some truly fundamental change in our understanding of physics, likely the most radical development of any 375 years in humanity’s future.
No, I haven't. I've picked the most recent 375 years. The most recent 375 years just happen to be the most significant years technological development of human history. You know what the most significant 375 years of technological development were before that? It was the prior 375 years. You know what the most significant years were before that? The prior 375 years. Notice the pattern developing here?
> The SC lore does not report any outsized tech development during those 375 years remotely akin to the dev we’ve had just in computational power
Yes, it does. All the technological exchange with the Banu postdate the introduction of the Gladius.
> The F-22 first flight was in 1997.
So... not 1600 then? What were they flying in 1600?
All of your arguments - which are not good arguments - that it's reasonable for the Gladius to have remained in service for almost 400 years (and it's not even the oldest combat ship currently in service with the UEN, the Retaliator is even older. And we've seen pictures of a first-gen Retaliator which looks identical to the modern one) completely fall down in the face of the fact that there are constantly new ships being introduced. If UEE tech has reached a point where it's normal for ships to remain unchanged for centuries, then why are there also constantly new ships?
The F7A Mk2 aside, the F8A is new, the Scorpius is new, the Sabre and its variants are new, the Redeemer is new, military Starlifters are new, the Eclipse is new. And that's just the ones we know about, and ignoring some of the nonsense in the SC timeline like the Hurricane and Gladiator both being older than the company that created them.
So why, in a world where it makes perfect sense for 400+ year old ship designs to still be state of the art in the military, are most of the military ships in the game ~50 years old or less?
For a 700mil game this are the worst characters in any game. Lifeless, skin shaders looking like from the 90's and the face animation is just dead.
Sir this is a whammers