Starting more or less in order as to how the posts line up here on the last page…

A Nova Cannon may not be explicitely "Exterminatus class weaponry"m but you said yourself that firing off a couple rounds at a planet would devastate the surface to an excessive degree. Which is -basically- the same damn thing. Destroying a planet that is capable of holding human habitation without special measures taking place (as in, an earth-like planet), is most certainly going to provoke some sort of response, even if its just turning your reputation to shit with most of the Expanse.

And you still neglect that some people willingly choose destruction over domination. The modern western notions, of each and every person fighting against everyone else, for their own personal success and livelihood, never giving a fuck about who they have to step over to get ahead in their own life. Well, assuming that ideal still holds true in the entire Imperium, or far-flung colony worlds, is a mistake. Sometimes the people holed up and trapped will tell the Romans to go to hell and systematically execute themselves instead. Some people kinda like the idea of dieing before being enslaved. So don't be so confident that you can just threaten to blow people up with a Nova Cannon and expect them to roll over every time, even after you have to use it once.

And need I point out, if you make a habit of sailing up to planets, and giving them the choice of bending a knee or being blown up… yeah, you're going to become real unpopular really fast, and you will inevitably see other shipmasters putting you in their sights, as you're little more than a jumped up brigand at that point.

Now, as for the industrial capacity of a colony world. No.

No building hundreds of bombers and sending them flying away to blow up the starship (and why do people always latch on to something extra dumb, like that they can JUST create a few hundred bombers and that's enough). Most Imperial colonies conform to a simple design scheme, and one that does not provide for that kind of infrastructure or level of technology.

Simply put, most Imperial colonies in the early stages have one main city, around the spaceport (if it has one), while the rest of the population is dispersed out in to the surrounding countryside, doing whatever it is that makes the planet valuable in the first place (farming, mining, etc.). And it isn't likely to be heavy industry at this stage. No, that doesn't happen until the planet reaches a much larger population, and isn't even a sure thing, should the planet be set aside for little more than resource exploitation (lots of Prometheum or metals to extract, or its a prime candidate for turning in to an agri-world).

The only way most little colonies (because by the time they have several million people, infrastructure, and ties to the rest of the Imperium, they're hardly a "colony" anymore) in the Expanse would have the kind of things needed to even attempt to fend off an enemy starship, would be if the world basically acted like a trading hub and/or popular dive with the other travellers floating around. Tatooine basically, where despite the world being a lousy little nowhere, lots of people with spaceships stop by while passing through the area. Then, and really only then would they have the chance to get the kind of attack craft needed to fend off attack by a starship.

It may seem strange, after all my talk of planetary defences and how you need to be careful, about me doing a virtual 180 with the previous commentary. But there are small colonies, and there are established colonies that are essentially regular civilized worlds in their own right (and if you want to get really technical, everything but Terra is a colony, but that aside..). Most of the Expanse conforms to the former, where the atmosphere could be likened to a frontier town. Having defences, and having defences that can even attempt to take on a starship, are two vastly different things, and as explained above they're not likely to have them. Most such colonies get by on having little worth taking. If someone with a starship really has to resort to raiding your little world for food or resources.. well, they must be holding things together with prayers and ducktape.

Worlds with valuable resources, and worlds that have had time to grow up from the simple colonies they start as, are the ones that will actually threaten the offending starship. The former because someone, somewhere, will want to protect said resources (the Mechanicus, for one implacable example). While the latter class of worlds will have the population and relative wealth to see to its defences better, because there's simply more to steal.

Also…

Asteroids aren't free, citizen!

You make an excellent point about people being willing to see their whole world burn rather than surrender.

As for most colonies not having a large industrial base, I am not so sure. The Imperium have been going 10,000 years. What qualifies as a young colony? 100 years, 500 years, or 1000 years?

Drop a 10,000 people onto an Earth-like planet, given them standard Imperial level STC tech and where will they be in 500 years? A population of 10 billion? What kind of industrial capacity might they have? Look at the size of the Real World USA navy… Translate that tonnage into spacecraft and what do you have?

Sorry. I missed the qualifier 'in the Expanse'. However, if the RT has encounter an pre-Imperium human civilisation in the system… Well they might have enough system defence to challenge a full Navy strike force.

I don't think he means defenceless full stop, even the smallest colony may well have some AAA and militia/ house troops. The thing is with taking on starships that even a single macrocannon is an huge expediture of worked metals, chemicals for the propellants and infrastructure to make the shells and gun itself. If you wanted to import these things, they may take up an entire cargo ship. Colonies hovering on the edge of profitability may simply not warrant the expense. larger colonies i.e. self sufficent worlds, may be much more heavily guarded in the expanse then they might be in normal imperial space because of the known level of threat.

As for throwing up a couple of hundred bombers, given that our modern tech level can't get substiantial numbers of craft into space, discounting ICBM's, why would a colony world a fraction of the size of China be able to do it? 

For Inspiration, it may be best to think of the age of imperialism, circa 1700-1900. some ports were heavily defended trading hubs, with forts to guard their entrances and dedicated monitors to their defence. If the Pc's build up a successful world, than this might be the result, and is worth underlining in the narrative when they approach the world.

for instance "Freeport Gidjanik was founded only two centuries ago, but the discovery of rich ores and stable warp routes made it a natural stopping point for traders heading into the foundling worlds. with more and more of their wealth stemming for the worlds manufactoriums and tarrifs, House Cavelock commissioned the construction of the Burning Fort whose partially exposed plasma reactor acts as a lighthouse to all that would visit her"

and "Drycove had been founded on high hopes, but like many worlds in the expanse, floundered swiftly. when the initial returns were not as strong as expected, the founder house have been infrequent visitors, seeking profit elsewhere. Without a tech priest cadre capable of expanding the few manufactoriums on the world, the vast majority of the populace uses locally manufactred items of low quality steel. while the satraps personal guards have lasguns, the PDF makes do with bolt action rifles, and while numerous, lack any kind of MBT or artillery."

Now a colony abandoned by its protectors might be easy pickings, or maybe one that got cut off, like grace. But I doubt a world like that would be worth threatening. In fact in grace's case threatening them would be entirely useless. I would guess that if you gather info and select a target you could find a colony that is defenseless to you, but that would take just as much work as assaulting a defended colony, just work of a different type. Just exploring the expanse, I dont think you would find too many defenseless colonies.

As to using a novacannon to strip away defenses, I would agree. Static defenses with less range than it would be fairly helpless. A system without mobile defenses would fall given enough time, no matter how many layers of static defenses they have.

Cryhavok said:

The biggest issue here is that the Koronus Expanse has been written in a manner that suggests the PCs can accomplish a great deal despite the fact that they only have one ship, often a raider or frigate. This flies in the face of the fact that almost everything in WH40K is done large.

The Frozen Reaches is one example, where the PCs and their ship are instrumental in the defence of Damaris. Realistically, one more frigate is unlikely to be the decisive factor in the invasion of a world in most of the WH40K universe, but in the KE, that's the way it is.

HappyDaze said:

To be fair, it's not the ship that the PCs really bring to the table in that adventure, it's the organization. There are enough assets to defend the planet already (although that might need to be rebalanced if the PCs are particularly powerful) but there is no cooperation between the people who command those assets. The PCs are the trusted outsiders that everyone will agree to let command (since they don't trust other parties for various reasons).

But yes, the KE did change 40k fluff a bit by making it so that one frigate could make a difference in a combat situation. I was pretty surprised by that decision when I first read the rule book; it seemed like they could have easily kept the previous standard in the fluff of Rogue Trader's being given a cruiser with their warrant and that being the standard RT ship.