Should Azlanti Star Empire technology be treated as if they were relics?

[Ravingdork]

Should Azlanti Star Empire technology be considered "relics" for anyone outside of the Empire's influence?

Relics (Dead Suns #5, page 39)
A relic has an item level but can be sold for 100% of the item’s price (like trade goods). A relic cannot be crafted without the means of a specific formula, which is almost always long lost, and often requires specific materials. A relic that became understood well enough to be reproduced, standardized, and mass-marketed might lose its relic status. Unlike normal weapons, relic weapons do not come fully loaded with ammunition unless they say so.

[GeneticDrift]

The only thing I have seen is from an AP.

deadsuns:

Due to the rarity of this equipment, a PC must succeed at a DC 28 Culture or Diplomacy check to find a buyer who believes the merchandise is authentic; however, such a buyer buys the armor and weapons for 20% of their purchase price (instead of 10%).

[Xenocrat]

I definitely think Pact Worlds buyers would pay more for Azlanti technology. What percentage that is probably depends on what it is, who the purchaser is, and how easy the GM decides reverse engineering is.

The Veskarium might pay well for those aeon stones that allow fast travel to the Azlanti home system.

[Ravingdork]

Xenocrat wrote:

The Veskarium might pay well for those aeon stones that allow fast travel to the Azlanti home system.

And then what? The Azlanti fleet is as large and powerful as the Pact Worlds and Veskarum fleets combined. They're more than a match for the Swarm fleets too.

[Xenocrat]

Ravingdork wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

The Veskarium might pay well for those aeon stones that allow fast travel to the Azlanti home system.

And then what? The Azlanti fleet is as large and powerful as the Pact Worlds and Veskarum fleets combined. They're more than a match for the Swarm fleets too.

You mass produce them and have a strategic advantage if you need to move fleets around in a war against the Azlanti. You can reach their home system in 1d6 days, they can only reach yours in 3d6. They have 12 systems to protect (of varying military importance), you have two really important ones (and some minor Veskarium colonies conquests).

Fast drift travel to a location is a military disadvantage if you're afraid of an overwhelming first strike. Yes, if you can use some sort of instantaneous magical communication you can summon reinforcements that will arrive in 1d6 days, but you have to have enough combat power on hand to last that long. Absalom Station would have been scooped up long ago if it didn't have its infinite energy defenses that were demonstrated in the Magefire Assault and then the rest of the Pact Worlds committing to its defense.

The status quo: a Veskarium assault on the Azlanti home system would take 5d6 days to arrive, allowing Azlanti spies to note its departure, warn the homesystem and the other 11 (either magically instantaneously, or a top level drift drive probably beating them in drift travel at 1d6/5 speed), and most of those 11 can send reinforcements in time. (Once the home system is warned, they'd surely burn some 6th level Interplanetary Teleports to summon reinforcements that are only 1d6 days away and will almost certainly beat the invasion fleet.

With the aeon stones: a Veskarium assault on the Azlanti home system will arrive in 1d6 days, preventing some/many of those reinforcements from beating them. This means the Azlanti have to shift more defenses to the home system, weakening the other 11 systems and making it easier for the Vesk to instead pick off one of those after faking an attack towards the home system.

Beyond their fractured polity, this is why the Pact Worlds aren't much of an offensive threat in a big interstellar war - they have to leave big defensive forces permanently at home, otherwise they launch an attack on a system 3d6 or 5d6 days distant, and the defenders of that system, if warned, can attack the weakened Pact Worlds in 1d6 days while that fleet is still in the Drift. With some luck, they might even finish a quick raid/trashing of the ships/orbital infrastructure and still roll low enough to make it home before the Pact Worlds fleet arrives.

The aeon stone giving fast access to the Azlanti homeworld is a huge strategic advantage for the Azlanti as long as it is a monopoly, but it becomes a weakness if everyone else has it. Then it's a big "come visit or invade, quickly!" sign just like Absalom Station has.

[kaid]

Yes that is one intersting artifact of the way drift travel works. The pact worlds need to heavily over fortify their home system because they literally are the easiest place in the known universe to get to and any new bad guy can jump right to it in the shortest jump time possible from anywhere.

Although on the plus side it also means that pact world exploration forces can scout around and find new worlds knowing if they find something dangerous they can get home for major resupply rapidly no matter where they go.

[BigNorseWolf]

Just because something isn't available at spacemart doesn't make it a relic.

[David knott 242]

I rather like the idea of rare equipment selling for 20% instead of 10% of its value. That is what I will be going with.