Powergeneration

Peace time, budget cuts, technical constraints.

Just because they miniaturized the ZPED for Jump comm drones does not mean that they will be able to use them in fighters... it would be nice but trust that smarter heads then ours built the super eagle to be the pinicle of current and past tech / to fit an existing fighter frame.

Agreed, but I wasn't necessarily speaking of the Eagle, that thing was preferred against the Falcon, because Gilliardi is an asshole.

BUT:
If you can miniaturized a ZPED to fit into a jump comm drone that ZPED is small enough to fit into a fighter.
If you don't want to take the falcons, which are bigger than the eagles, than it sure as hell is possible to built a fighter around the drone construct.
If the drone can jump with energy directly from a ZPED without a problem, so will the fighter.

That same tech could be adjusted to make warships and shuttle jump with energy directly provided by a (or several) ZPED.

The Alliance had a facility that could build Eagles, they were refurbishing the Falcons. I guess they could have build a factory for falcons too, but its easier to streamline production with fewer models. The Cobra's took over the Super Falcon's role of scouting. Also Because of a shortage of Pilots (which is probably still an issue) it made more sense to put one per "fighter" in the Super Eagle.

I wouldn't blame Gillardi for the lack of Super Falcons overmuch, They became a novelty with only two of them left, and they were retired.

I assume the requirements of a mini ZPED in a comm drone are a lot less then those needed for a fighter. Those additional pieces would likely have taken up space in a fighter and been additional points of weakness in the design. A comm drone would be unmanned what effects would a mini ZPED have on a pilot in close proximity??? And a comm drone is like a mini submerine, thats not a good base to build a space superiority fighter on. It ruins the story if every little thing is over powered... how do you bring down a ZPED Fighter? a fleet of them? why not have ZPED hand held guns for shooting down spaceships???

The antimatter reactors are common and powerful enough in the universe. ZPED's which are still relatively new (& which was mostly kept in Takaran Hands anyway) might not yet be after filtering down for more common use in something as small as a Fighter... Also What happens now that the Dushan have Takara???

The Dushan aren't stupid, they just are spread too thin at the moment, they will build ZPED powered ships as soon as possible and if they get their hands on a ZPED drone or even the blue prints they will use them as a starting point to build a ZPED fighter.

BTW you bring such a fighter down the same way the Avendal brought down the other ZPED powered ships: Bigger guns, sustained fire and good tactics. If you have ZPED powered fighters, (which btw only need ONE pilot, the other is only the navigator/systems operator) than you'll have the power for real guns on the fighter.

But I agree that Peace time and budget cuts are excellent real world reasons

ZPED Fighters would be 2x if not 3x the size of a comm drone and ships that size would be more attack ship then Fighter (would be hard pressed to fit it into the Aurora's new flight bays). So if you were putting a ZPED in a Cobra, that would make more sense. It would have greater utility what with its crew quarters etc.

You are right
But than again such a ship would not necessarily need a mother ship, it would need a repair and refuel station ..... would make the design of an open deck jump carrier or jump platform way more appealing ... imagine a Jung Battle Platform with jump capabilities and ZPED powered gunships, shields and weapons.

And yes it would be more a gunship than a fighter and as such would carry really heavy weaponry and shield generators .... kind of cool actually, a ship that could jump halfway across the galaxy in a matter of minutes and have the shields and weapons of a heavy cruiser while being about as big and manouverable as a gunship

The Cobra would be a more comfortable experience for the crew, for a ship with the same mission profile. it would be big enough to have a crew to man key stations round the clock, Your gunship requires a drastically different delivery bed. The idea behind Fighters is that they are where you want them, so if you have a Ship in a system, they can launch fighters. For your monster fighter you need to launch a comm drone to the nearest forward base. Your Carriers need massive bays to fit them, so small carriers are mothballed, and larger more expensive carriers are needed with a drastically reduced mission profile. I just don't like the super large fighter idea, its so powerful it breaks its own military.

Agreed, it needs to be big to fit in everything, but it would have enormous advantages too:
1.) ZPEDs down run out of fuel
2.) ZPED powered ships have more energy than they are able to burn
3.) Small size of the ships in comparison to their weaponry and shields
4.) Real strong shielding
5.) Cruiser size energy weapons (I would forgo missiles ans torpedos since they need to be stored somewhere)
6.) Relative high maneuverability do to their size
7.) No way a conventional fighter attack could bring them down

AND:
8.) In a defensive role, you can station them on a planet or a moon, you wouldn't need a mother ship for that.
9.) Offensively, all you need is a big hangar with thrusters, shields and a jump drive (preferably ZPED powered of course). They could stay light days out of the system and still launch a devastating attack and go in later to garrison or raid enemy installations.
10.) In a defensive role those hangars and ships would have enormous rapid response ranges and would only act as reinforcements, since the garrisons are stationed on site.
11.) Let's be honest you probably would not need bigger ships.

Every type of Vehicle has a role, specialist vehicles do one thing better then every other vehicle. When you try to create a vehicle that does two or more things well you build in deficiencies. What you are describing is a vehicle that's trying to do multiple things. Be small and nimble like a fighter and take on Capitol ships like a destroyer. If we are at the stage where everyone is using ZPED's then a Cruiser will have more power and guns to bring to bear on a small attach ship/big fighter. It wouldn't be able to dodge the fire of more nimble fighters. What ever the power source, using systems like weapons and shields at high power levels for too long will result in spot failures in equipment. Being less then a specialized vehicle makes that more prone to happening and a bigger target does not need that kind of baseline.

agreed

But that would bring us back to the first question:
Why haven't they replaced the antimatter generators in their warships (I mean the big ones and the cobras) with ZPED?
Even if Earth is still building houses for the displaced, Tau Ceti has the industrial base to do so, especially with replicators.

1) Trust in your Allies - If you had a new and unknown alliance with worlds you were not familiar with, and who had a better industrial base then you, would you give them the ability to field more powerful ships then you? Maybe if there was a big enough threat, but the Jung are held back by the threat of JKKV world wreckers, so in "Peace time" why give a potential ally/enemy/neutral people who are bigger then you tech that would be bigger then yours?

2) Loyalty of your Captains - If you have a new fleet, staffed by people you didnt bring up (well for the most part, yes you did, but for a minute there there was a lot of other influence making some of the senior staff a little more power then you would have given them / that you would have given them but now someone else did and that mixes loyalties - why would you give this new fleet / these new captains of questionable loyalty massively powerful ships that with ZPEDs could Travel further faster and with greater ability to destroy and influence

3) Possibility that Takara did not give the blueprints to the Alliance for the ZPED (which would mean that the Alliance would need to backwards engineer the tech, which with a power source that powerful is A) Risky and B) better utilized in other area's)

4) As for where the Alliance ZPED's are right now, there were a number of Mini ZPED's on the Aurora when it returned to Sol from the PC. These I believe are either on the Earth for power generation or possible installed in the Alliance Battleships which would most need them for large scale defense against potential Battle Platforms etc.

5) Who wants to read a story where the good guys have numerous Death stars and the bad guys have lots of cannon fodder?

1) yes and no, Yes I don't trust completely, but no the charter stated total openess
2) agreed
3) Knowing Kamenetsky (I hope I spelled that right) and Casimir, the aurora brought those blueprints back to earth
4) agreed
5) yeah that would be totally senceless

I'm all for openness, but you don't give the good stuff away to everyone, you do background checks on people, supply the tech only though secure channels to secure facilities so that only those you want to have access have access. That way you give a planet the tech but in a way that they can't runaway with it... That or you build it with tamper proofing explosives, then train your allies only on how to use it, makes you indispensable and still vaguely open...

Of course that implies that the Aurora did have a copy of the Takaran ZPED design, which even with rereading of the story is unclear to me. Casimir was a clever man, I'm sure that he was clever enough to sell the product & not the design.

It really, really sucks that we will be waiting another 2 months for the next installment!!! I thought I was over my withdrawal symptoms but the last 2 episodes have been stellar and I can't wait!