Re: Planet Conquest]]

> <<  For instance the fact that such a mass of ships could never
> travel together as a fleet in the first place... >>
> 
> Not technically true.  They would have to be carefully spaced out (three
> dimensionally) and would be widely separated when they dropped to standard
> speed, but they could do it.  If you're going to travel that way, though,
> your lead ships need to be powerful ones to stand and fight.

Actually it is true.  the slightest calculation at those speeds and distances
will cause you to lose ships constantly.  Off by .1 degrees?  Bye-bye ship. 
Interior ships will drop out clusters of ships on either side with them and no
one will ever match course exactly again with other ships they can't even see.
 Even with waypoints being used you'd never manage it.  You'd lose a ship here
and a ship there and in the phlog there's no reference to navigate from. 
Phlogiston navigation is a must just to attempt it but then you've got the
problems with the fact that flow travel is much less common than wildspace
travel.  Thus there are many fewer navigators around to teach anyone.  The
elves would be the best at this and even they are smart enough to use their
armada-carriers.  The scro have been hiding in their sphere trying to avoid
notice while rebuilding their fleet and numbers so they don't have a whole lot
of skill at this.  In the end the scro fleet will disintegrate enroute and
maybe (being generous) 1 in 10 ships will make it to the sphere.  Maybe
another 1 in 10 make it but late or at the wrong point of entry (it's a
sphere, it's big!).  Now you've increased the chances of discovery by many
times while your warfleet hasn't even reached the planet!  And all this
ignores basic things like what happens when you change shifts on the helm and
have to drop to tactical?  It's going to create havoc with your "fleet".  SJ
was designed to avoid fleets, pure and simple.

On a historic/swashbuckling note (correct me if I'm wrong, Paul), fleets
weren't common even on our own world's seas.  Those fleets that were put
together (and you could even see the other ships in order to remain together!)
tended to be coastal since a single storm or especially dark night could get
you split up.  This is what made the "swashbuckling" lone pirates and
privateers so successful and so many merchant and treasure ships so vulnerable
when crossing the ocean.

Do you really think I'd admit to stealing that much money in my email sig?
Uhh, don't answer that.

  The crazier the people are around me the saner I am.  That's why I work in
an asylum. No, not the rubber room again! No, but, but, my email...

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