g4 :: Last Man by ObsidianSnake

One has to wonder what will happen.

Posted by ObsidianSnake 2 years ago Report

As soon as it all starts to go down, King George Ⅱ and a frantic retinue runs back to Hanover with no intention to return to English soil. You know how it is, lol

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Might try suing for peace.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

As far as I can tell, they can't actually project any sort of power overseas. They have two ships, a couple dozen cannon, and a very limited supply of gunpowder, and they don't have the knowledge or resources to make more. As long as no-one else makes landfall, they're essentially stuck on Australia (the two ships they do have could easily be sunk without any sort of risk; if the captain of the Queensarrowe had fired upon the Faireweather as soon as it was taken, they all would have died and that would have been that).

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Might be possible, but there's always other tricks.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 2 years ago Report

Our brave ingenuity vs. their devious tricks

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Lots of things.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

I just can't get past the numbers. They have two ships that aren't full warships. If they try and make landfall in England, they'll face at minimum a good chunk of the Royal Navy. They'll be outnumbered at least ten to one, against ships that can probably outfight the both of them on their own. Even if they do manage to slip past them and make landfall, that still leaves them with only a couple hundred people at most to try and conquer an entire country. You physically cannot occupy a country with that few people; everyone will simply either avoid you or wait for you to leave to deal with something that's cropped up somewhere else. You might be able to take a small city, but that's about it. As things stand, they simply cannot operate at any distance from Australia.

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Ah, but the question is, how many of them are there, and have they learned the knowledge to make more such ships?

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

I mean that the ships they have can only carry a couple hundred of them, the rest of them are stuck in Australia. I don't see how they could make more. Sailing a ship and making it are two very different skill sets, plus there's the manufacturing of materials to make the ship out of, locating suitable resources to use, building the shipyard to build the ship in ... There's just so much else that goes into enabling it that I don't see how they could possibly have learned all that just from two ship's crews (who, while they may know a lot about maintenance, don't have anything to do with actually building the ship in the first place).

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

True, I'll grant that - maintenance and building are two separate things. Let's just hope than none of the absorbed crew knew how to make them.....

Of course, there's other ways.... like going to India or something first.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

Admittedly you could island hop through Indonesia to the continuous Eurasian landmass - but why haven't they already? Polynesian seamanship is perfectly adequate for that, and since the locals know enough about them to know to keep away, they've likely absorbed the knowledge of how to build their craft (Admittedly this is an 'absence of evidence' argument, but since none of that's mentioned in the story, you can't really do anything other than speculate).

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Maybe they had no reason to do so, until then.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

Okay, yeah, that's probably the case. But I still don't see how they could be capable of recreating the long and complex supply chains for properly outfitting a long distance naval force without absorbing at the very least several thousand more people - all of whom would have to have the correct skillsets.

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Or, instead of devouring them, ally with folks that don't like the Europeans, especially if they too have the skills needed.

More than one way to cook a chicken besides frying it after all. Poaching, baking, roasting, grilling....

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

True, but at the time, the relevant technological skills hadn't spread outside of Europe, except possibly North Africa and the Ottomans (who are hardly easier to reach).

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Steal the trade ships that visit India and China then. Then there's the Chinese junks - some were ocean voyaging sorts.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

That'll get you some at first - until they start adopting a convoy system and setting off the powder stores rather than being taken alive. And it doesn't solve the problem of not being able to replace what you lose except by stealing it - and you can't loot enough powder to win a sea battle. The best they can hope for in a proper confrontation is a Pyhrric victory, and even that's unlikely.

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

I guess that depends on allies, and if they use a land route or not.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 2 years ago Report

That's what I'm saying - they wouldn't be able to do it themselves, and I don't see anyone who would be both willing and able to help.

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Posted by alockwood1 2 years ago Report

Guess it depends on how this world works.

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