Funny, I was thinking the opposite. The military buildup is not going to help us much in staffing ParSec, but the inevitable downshift after the conflict will allow us to pick up Legionnairy trained troops with actual experience pretty easily.
It's not them that we'd build up now; we should be focused on increasing out number of LLP.
Scene takes place in an Alliance recruitment center:
Captain Recruiter: Hello Mr. Johnson, I wish we could be meeting again on better circumstances.
Former Sargent Johnson: I don't think anyone wants to wake up to a call from the army about the xeno's getting ambitious... sir.
Captain Recruiter: I understand. Believe me. Given that Sol itself is under threat, we're pulling out all the stops. That little clause in your contact that you'll be available for service in the event you're called up again? Consider it reactivated. For everyone. Humanity's gonna be in for a slog, but we've got a lot of nifty toys to entertain the enemy.
Former Sargent Johnson: Fight of their lives, sir. They're dyin' for it.
Captain Recruiter: Damn straight. I'll be forwarding an itinerary for you soon; the jist is that you'll be ordered to present yourself in seven days to Fort Charleston for remedial training. You've only been out of the service for eighteen months but we'll need to re-familiarize you with modern starship maintenance before you can get deployed to the field. You're not in a
protected class so you'd better be there.
Former Sargent Johnson: ....Protected class, sir?
Captain Recruiter: Occupations deemed vital to the war effort. Scientists, farmers; people whose jobs need doing, essentially. Among other exceptions, like ParSec.
Former Sargent Johnson: Sir?
Captain Recruiter: The flyboys with all the cool toys, Paragon Industries' merc outfit. Heh, not that I can complain. The get good wages, compensation and other arrangements, but the top brass has got them fighting for us. Each and every man and woman will be serving the Alliance as a whole from the inside of a Legionary or Paragon's new wonder weapon, the Lite Laser Pydna.
Former Sargent Johnson: I haven't heard of them, sir.
Captain Recruiter: Understandable. They were the ones responsible for smashing the slavers on Anhur and obliterating the strike-force sent to Mindoir. Give their experience in anti-slavery, planetary invasion, high tech warfare and LLP technology, they're gonna be the tip of the spear. Unfortunately, I'll have to cut this short. I have a lot of people to see today. Remember, Fort Charleston in seven days
unless you're a member of a protected class?
Understood?
Former Sargent Johnson: .... I think I do, sir.
If the Alliance wants to game the contact, it'd be easy for them. Redirect people they're reactivating to us and they can easily balloon the numbers of Pydna's that ParSec has, ships that are very, very cheap for them and at their direct beck and call.
The cost of our Pydnas to buy is going to be in the
hundreds of billions of credits per quarter. Then they're going to have to train people, pay wages, reactive old soldiers, fighting a war is
very expensive. They're looking at trillions in ship procurement just from us this year alone. Given the fact that the LLP's going to be ours, they don't care nearly as much if they're destroyed. The Alliance won't even have to pay death benefits for those soldiers killed in ParSec, we will and we're very generous will salary and benefits. They probably won't trust us with
all of the LLP, but if they can defray the costs even a bit then it's going to go a very long distance to keeping them under budget. An LLP assigned to ParSec instead of bought outright allows them to afford hundreds of extra Legionaries, an enormous force on its own. A contract to keep on and then buy second hand more LLP after the war (when the Alliance can afford it) would likely make them even more willing.
As long as we indicate that we're willing to help them through that legal fiction, they can easily direct people towards us as long as they're careful with the people they reactive for service (or those they order to retire and then work for us). The only question is how much do we want this to cost us as a business? We have no shareholders, but there's an opportunity cost associated with not charging the Alliance out the nose. Money grows exponentially for us so a small hit now translates to a big loss later.
