Thread:Charles Murray/@comment-5107256-20160627071020/@comment-25309944-20160627140001

France would definitely be willing to build a supercarrier for one of their closest human allies. However, I'm a little concerned that the Souveraineté might be a little expensive – both in terms of initial cost, logistics capacity, and upkeep – for Africa to maintain so soon after the end of the Great Xonexian Schism. Supercarriers in general are enormous and complex machines which take France 2-3 years to build, and the Souverainté in particular is an expensive design. Equipped with much more elaborate logistics facilities, a combat-capable hull, armor, and massive riftfire cannons meant explicitly to engage other superships, it is no small feat of engineering. Add on top of that the fact that France has only ever built two, which means that its production line is not as refined or efficient as for other supercarrier classes, and the price tag is bound to be hefty.

I'm still perfectly willing to go ahead with it, but I wanted you to be aware that South Africa might need to take on a significant amount of debt to finance its acquisition of a Souverainté, and that it might be a bit overkill for South Africa's purposes. The Souverainté is really only useful when fighting against other great powers and their fleets of Star Dreadnoughts, otherwise it actually performs worse than the Pax Franconica – a pure logistics supercarrier – relative to cost.