The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

Hi SharkHunter,

The 'graser torpedoes' were fairly big, much bigger than a pod [closer to a LAC in size], so launching them would make pods relatively a piece of cake, but I don't recall them being tube launched.

The grav signature of freighters is quite a bit different from warships, that doubled grav wave among other things, so simply sending freighters wouldn't work.

Again, the GA had at least some 2.5 million missile pods in June, Haven is still in war production mode, and Beowulf is now producing Apollo's, with Manticore and Grayson soon to follow, if not already in this month of October, thanks to Beowulf's help.

We haven't seen any sign that the GA's counter commerce raiding plan or program has been voided or deferred, so your theory needs some more support than simple speculation.

From the last conversation of the Mandarins we saw, they feel they must be seen actively doing something to avoid being replaced etc, regardless of how long it takes to prune the incompetents in the SLN hierarchy, one reason for attacking Beowulf.

OTOH, the SL and the SLN don't have the time for any R&D team to provide answers or equipment to cope with the GA.

You're right both the near and long term results are getting worse for the Malign, pushing them to make more and greater errors, which we may see soon.

The problem for Albrecht and the MAlign is that several of the basic premises of their great plan have already been violated or come undone, such as the RF front's were never intended to face SDP's when they still didn't have MDM's of their own [which will still take years], which may cause the whole colossus to collapse in the near future.

L

SharkHunter wrote:--snipping self--

fallsfromtrees wrote:*quote="SharkHunter"*...
Lotta thoughts in many threads about what the LennyDets (MAlign superdreadnoughts, likely pod-dispensing) are going to do, stacked up against Grand Alliance hardware. Ultimately they obviously HAVE to do that but with Manticore already strangling the Solarian League bureaucratic money source, and with the GA in "missile preservation mode" temporarily, what's to stop the LennyDets or even the Sharks from trashing/destroying most or all of the bigger and known SLN fleet bases and mothballed fleet(s) and just blaming it on Manticore?

Seems like a decently nasty/evil and efficient political approach to making things much, much worse...

It's not clear, at least to me, that hte Lenny Dets are pod layers. They were designed before the pod layer concept came out. It was stated that they could handle the graser torps internally, but I have always assumed that that meant they were fired from missile tubes.
The argument against the second is that unless you kill everyone in those fleet bases, the shapes and sensor patterns of the Sharks Lenny Dets are sufficiently different from the standard warship, that even the SLN will realize that someone has just hit them with the same weapons that trashed Manticore, and give credence to the GA belief that there is someone out there out to get both of us.

I think you're right about the impeller sig problem, but you could fake a huge impeller arrival with Manpower freighters hypering in at the appropriate time. Drop in thirty freighters or so to simulate a "mass fleet arrival"; once the graser torps and missiles are ready to fire, move them towards the hyper limit, and at the equivalent long range attack time, ka-boom, then hyper the freighters back out.

Not sure if the LDs's are pod layers either, but given that the Technodyne pods in Filerata's Folly came from somewhere nearby, I'd think that they'd at least have the ability to drop limpeted Cataphract-C based pods.

The rest of my thinking is that We already know that Manticore doesn't really want to attack the whole league, they just want to make sure they don't piss off enough of the systems to cause a Bolthole development process, and Balkanizing the SL is the best way to accomplish that. The MAlign wants the balkanization, but with themselves in charge.

Whether it makes sense to trash the SLN mothballed fleet as part of that process or not is the primary question. At least in the near term, the GA is in "missile preservation mode", so the previous plan of counter commerce raiding went --pffft--, and presumably that includes instructing the forces holding the wormholes,etc. to not go hog-wild using their missiles. Likely the Mandarins wouldn't mind nothing happening for a while so they can get the SLN's heads out of their butts / ostritch-in-sand mode into active R&D and smarter defense mode.

So my logic is that both waiting-game situations make the MAlign's problems much much worse, and even though the wheels are coming off Albrecht's current plans, destabilizing things even further "right now" is the only chance for the RF to take over.*quote*

Hi SharkHunter,

The problem is the conventionally armed RF SDF's don't and won't have anything to standup to the GA for years yet, so joining the RF won't provide any security to anyone except against pirates and pitiful neighbors.

L

SharkHunter wrote:*quote="Weird Harold"*[quote="SharkHunter"]The rest of my thinking is that We already know that Manticore doesn't really want to attack the whole league, they just want to make sure they don't piss off enough of the systems to cause a Bolthole development process, and Balkanizing the SL is the best way to accomplish that. The MAlign wants the balkanization, but with themselves in charge.*quote*

Quite aside from the technical details of the Lenny Dets (which aren't available yet anyway) why would the MAlign do the one thing virtually guaranteed to unite the Solarian League and prevent Balkanization? Sure, it would make things more difficult for Manticore and the GA, but it would also make them even worse for the MAlign.

Good question. Except that without Battle Fleet or the ability to rebuild short term, all of a sudden the RF might look pretty darn good. We'll defend you from those dang-neo barbs trying to take over the galaxy! We're the good guys with our SDF(s), sure you can borrow a few ships which we'll gladly staff for you, just sign on the dotted line...[/quote]

Hi Weird Harold,

The isolationist attitude in the US just before Pearl Harbor may have been over 50+%, possibly 60%, but hardly 80-90%.

Of course 'isolationist' is quite a flexible term, as so many felt doing all we could 'short of war' to help England and/or the Soviet Union was alright, whatever Hitler may think or do about it, keeping in mind we were already well into the war in the North Atlantic.

Do you know where the USS Idaho and Mississippi were on December 7th 1941?

How about the rest of the Atlantic Fleet BB's?

L

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Good question. Except that without Battle Fleet or the ability to rebuild short term, all of a sudden the RF might look pretty darn good.

If the MAlign pull an Oyster Bay/Pearl Harbor style attack on any League territory, the RF won't be able to secede and/or offer to replace the SLN.

If you done a poll Dec 6th 1941 in the USA, You'd have found about 80-90% Isolationist sentiment.

If you repeated the poll a week later, you would have had to stand in line at a recruiting station to find anyone to question and any suggestion of isolationism would be asking for a lynching.

The Solarian League would react to a perceived "sneak attack" much the same way the US reversed its Isolationist majority after Pearl Harbor.

Hi StealthSeeker,

Welcome to the forum, enjoy your favorite simulated drink on the simulated forum.

Kudos for some excellent analysis, I think you've identified all the threads we need to keep track of.

I think you're right about the SL's collapse happening much faster than the MAlign planned or expected, with Beowulf not being isolated, besides the whole GA throwing almost all their plans off.

The potential for someone from one of the new GA allies of the rescued ex-protectorates etc seeing something that proves critical in finding Darius etc looms large in my possible future scenarios, something that wouldn't have happened if the MAlign hadn't started its campaign to ruin the SEM's reputation in the verge etc.

L

StealthSeeker wrote:I have a totally different take on things than has been discussed here so far.

There are a few things that are in the background that I believe will become very important. The escapee from Mesa (Semones?) brought enough knowledge with him about the MA drive propulsion that I think bolthole will come up with a solution to tracking it.

There is the MA scientist who was part of the MA evacuation that killed his "protector" who I believe will in some way contribute to problems for the MA.

I think that there is a secret in the Congo system and it's wormhole that will be a problem for the MA. I believe that the MA knew of this wormhole and it was because of it that the Congo system was so important to the MA.

I believe that in the MA's plans Haven was to have destroyed Manticore and the fact that they have joined forces is a big problem for the MA plans.

Part of the MA plans was for the destruction of the SL and I believe that this must still happen, but I believe it must happen much faster than was planned by the MA so that what ever "structure" replaces it has a chance to develop before the MA can get it's hands on it or have to much influence in it's foundation. The fact that the MA had to abandon Mesa is going to make it very difficult for the MA to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in the SL because of the immense distance they are forced to operate from.

I think that the MA's ship building program is still in it's infancy and while that will allow them to adapt to having pod layers, its going to be years before they have a substantial let alone a massive fleet.

I think that the GA will need to go on an aggressive offensive against the SL after the SLN attacks Beowulf. As Henke says in SoF, the war with Haven proved that the only way to win a war is to go on the attack while you have the advantage.

I think that the GA will take out the mothball fleet as retaliation for the attack on Beowulf. But they will only permanently disable the mothballed ships and not attack the planets where the ships are stored, they attack a resource, not a people. I want the disabled ships available for their mettle to rebuild better ships after the SL falls. They will save missiles during these operations by using combined Haven/Grayson/Manty fleets carry out the attacks. The attacks will be supported by Grayson/Manty ghost rider recon platforms. Haven will use their abundant missiles to force any SDF to surrender and then Grayson/Manty LAC's will use their grasers to do the appropriate damage the mothballed ships.

I see the SLN's attack on Beowulf as it's last hurraw in the way of being able to create a massive fleet of ships to threaten anybody. I think that a confused SLN will make an effort to retake some of the termini that Manticore has taken and that those task forces will be defeated in detail. The SLN will loose enough ships that without it reserve of mothballed ships it becomes little threat to anyone but pirates.

These are the thing I see happening in the Honorverse future.

lyonheart wrote:Snip...
OTOH, the SL and the SLN don't have the time for any R&D team to provide answers or equipment to cope with the GA.

...Snip

Don't forget that some of the League SDFs sent observers as early as Operation Buttercup, and most likely eariler, in the Peep/Manty wars. While the textev says that the SLN discounted/misfiled the reports from those observers, nothing was said about how the SDFs took those observations. The SLN viewed the SDFs as glorified coast guards, but we do not know how professional the SDF's were in naval matters. DW has said that the Manties enjoy the tech edge, because of the mindset and the advantage the MWJ gives in getting ideas from all over in one place. That doesn't mean that the SL doesn't have the research, just that it could be spread all over instead and that the SLN is not using it (i.e. Technodyne advances like the missile pods given to Monica and the drone missiles that Saint Just used in Yeltsin.

Storm from the Shadows end of Chapter 48 wrote:Cpt Daud al-Fanudahi and Cpt Irene Teague talking about SDF observations of the Havenite wars

"They can't all be true," she protested quietly. "The rumors, I mean. Manticor's only one time little star system, Daud! All right, so its a rich little star system, and it's got a hell of a lot bigger navy than anybody else its size. But it's still one star system, however many other systems it may be in the process of annexing. Are you seriously suggesting that they've managed somehow to put together a better, more effective R and D establishment than the entire Solarian League?"
"They don't have to have done that," he said flatly. "The League could be ahead of them clear across the board, but that doesn't mean the Navy is. These people have been fighting a war for better than twenty T-years, and they started their military buildup way the hell before that. You think maybe they could have been working really hard on weapons R and D in the process? That maybe, unlike us, they've been looking at real combat reports, instead of analyses of traing simulations where the 'secret details' get leaked to all the senior participants before they even begin the exercize? That, unlike us, the people building their weapons and evaluating their combat doctrines might once have heard of a gentleman named Charles Darwin? Compared to someone who's been fighting for his life for two decades, we're soft, Irene - soft, underprepared, and complacent."

Mission of Honor Arc wrote:High Admiral Matthews talking to Protector Benjamin near the beginning of the book

"In the long term, of course, the Solarian League could pose a very serious threat to the Protectorate. I agree with the Manties' estimate that it would take years for the SLN to get comparable technology into production and deployed. I think some of the individual system-defense forces could probably shave some time off of how long it's going to take the SLN in particular, and the League in general, to overcome the sheer inertia of their entrenched bureaucracies, but as far as I'm aware, none of those SDFs are in anything like the Star Kingdom's—I mean the Star Empire's—league.

For that matter, I don't think any of them could come close to matching our combat power for quite a lengthy period. But in the end, assuming the League has the stomach to pay the price in both human and economic terms, there's not much doubt that, barring direct divine intervention, the Sollies could absorb anything we and the Manticorans combined could hand out and still steamroller us in the end."

DW has no problem with a character making pronouncements from their own knowledge, only to have things they don't know make that pronouncement less than 100% accurate. So, don't take Honor's, Hamish's or Matthews pronouncements as 100% accurate as they may not have all the info.

Stealthseeker, you have a pretty good list of the angles that the forum has been considering as potential cracks that the Grand Alliance can take advantage of, depending on how things develop. I think the only major difference between your ideas below and the majority opinion is taking out the mothball fleet, which is a topic on which I'm not sure the forum has ever gotten a true consensus.

I'll comment on only a couple of your points:

StealthSeeker wrote:I have a totally different take on things than has been discussed here so far.

There are a few things that are in the background that I believe will become very important. The escapee from Mesa (Semones?) brought enough knowledge with him about the MA drive propulsion that I think bolthole will come up with a solution to tracking it.

Yes, Simoes. Unfortunately, he worked on the streak drive, not the spider drive. He does not appear to know any technical details about the spider drive, but he can certainly give the streak drive to the Alliance.

One thing you forgot to mention is the data dump provided by McBryde. Since it was partially intended to be a teaser, it has limited information, but we have not been told everything that was in those data crystals yet.

I think that there is a secret in the Congo system and it's wormhole that will be a problem for the MA. I believe that the MA knew of this wormhole and it was because of it that the Congo system was so important to the MA.

We know for certain that the Alignment knew of the Torch wormhole--that's why they placed a squadron of ships on the other side of the wormhole. We have textev that the Alignment intended this wormhole to be their secret backdoor into the Haven Quadrant once they began military operations. They can live without that backdoor; the biggest problem the Alignment has with enemies controlling Torch is that the wormhole also leads indirectly to Darius. It is Darius that the Alignment is desperate to keep hidden from Torch and the Grand Alliance. That's the real secret of Torch that you are referring to. It's not clear how the GA could take advantage of this, even if they figure it out, because David has repeatedly told us that an invasion through a properly defended wormhole is nearly impossible. But the wormhole is clearly an issue for the Alignment.

I believe that in the MA's plans Haven was to have destroyed Manticore and the fact that they have joined forces is a big problem for the MA plans.

We know this for a fact, from infodumps from David. The Alignment had been setting Haven up for a couple hundred years to be the wrecking ball that knocked the League over. When Manticore became too powerful, the Alignment started adjusting their plans so they could use Manticore in that role instead, but they needed to use Haven to keep Manticore from getting too big. Whichever tool they used (Manticore or Haven), the Alignment wanted that tool to be too weakened in the conflict with the League to be a threat to the Alignment's plans. The alliance completely wrecks that aspect of the plan.

StealthSeeker wrote:Its been so long since I have read that book that I am very fuzzy on the details. However, I have this memory of the description of the launch of the missiles/pods from these MA ships to be a burdensom thing. Almost like the crews had to manually shove the pods out the door. If I remember this correctly, then I would say that they are not very good pod layer ships.

You are misremembering. What you are thinking of is the launching of the graser torpedoes, which are much larger and were never intended to be launched by Sharks. Sharks had no problem launching their missile pods from their pod bay.

lyonheart wrote:The problem is the conventionally armed RF SDF's don't and won't have anything to standup to the GA for years yet, so joining the RF won't provide any security to anyone except against pirates and pitiful neighbors.

The Renaissance Factor won't need to stand up against the GA, since they publicly stand for anti-slavery and democracy and apple pie. Their long-term goal of domination of a replacement for the Solarian League that encompasses all of known space is still a hidden long-term goal.

There is no reason for the GA to confront them in the near future, and the GA may well ally with one or more RF systems since they aren't even publicly a single star-nation, yet.

Weird Harold wrote:

lyonheart wrote:The problem is the conventionally armed RF SDF's don't and won't have anything to standup to the GA for years yet, so joining the RF won't provide any security to anyone except against pirates and pitiful neighbors.

The Renaissance Factor won't need to stand up against the GA, since they publicly stand for anti-slavery and democracy and apple pie. Their long-term goal of domination of a replacement for the Solarian League that encompasses all of known space is still a hidden long-term goal.

There is no reason for the GA to confront them in the near future, and the GA may well ally with one or more RF systems since they aren't even publicly a single star-nation, yet.

The RF is going to look precisely like the sort of successor state the GA needs to create. The GA doesn't want such a successor state to be a nucleus for a new League though, which is close enough to what the Alignment has in mind. But that's long-term, and in the nearer term, the RF only risks looking too good to be true in the GA perspective.

One of the smart possible moves for the Alignment, once they accept the wheels really have come off, is to let the RF really be one good successor state and either try again in a few hundred years with a very different plan, or spend the next few hundred years making the public argument for Detweiler transhumanism instead of being supervillains. For that matter, the RF leaders may well reasonably betray the Alignment in favor of one of those options if the Alignment leadership itself won't, or just giving up on Detweiler's vision entirely.

SWM wrote:Stealthseeker, you have a pretty good list of the angles that the forum has been considering as potential cracks that the Grand Alliance can take advantage of, depending on how things develop. I think the only major difference between your ideas below and the majority opinion is taking out the mothball fleet, which is a topic on which I'm not sure the forum has ever gotten a true consensus.

I believe that the GA must take out the mothball fleet for several reasons. A few of which are that this mothball fleet represents a perceived strength of the Mandarin's and of the SLN. The control and confidence in the strength of the Mandarins must be undercut and destroyed at any point possible. As others have pointed out, the GA can not conquer and occupy every star system in the SL. But as Admiral Henke says, if there is anything that the war with Haven has proven its that to win a war you must attack, and these mothballed fleets represent a point of attack than can be a focus point, a fulcrum to be leveraged just as much as the wormhole termini that Manticore is currently taking away from the SL.

If the mothballed fleet can be taken out, with a minimum loss of life, and with out attacking the planets in the systems that contain these fleets, then the GA should be able to build a case that they are attacking the resources of the Mandarin's and not the people of the SL.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:I'll comment on only a couple of your points:

I have a totally different take on things than has been discussed here so far.

There are a few things that are in the background that I believe will become very important. The escapee from Mesa (Semones?) brought enough knowledge with him about the MA drive propulsion that I think bolthole will come up with a solution to tracking it.

Yes, Simoes. Unfortunately, he worked on the streak drive, not the spider drive. He does not appear to know any technical details about the spider drive, but he can certainly give the streak drive to the Alliance.

One thing you forgot to mention is the data dump provided by McBryde. Since it was partially intended to be a teaser, it has limited information, but we have not been told everything that was in those data crystals yet.

Simoes may not have the technical knowledge on the spider drive but he might be able to define the box, so to speak, of what the spider drive is. I had forgotten the story thread about the data crystals. Thanks for the reminder. Maybe between them and Simoes the bolthole research group will be able to come up with a way to track ships with streak drive. Once streak drive ships can be tracked and targeted their dead meat. Stealth is their single greatest weapon, once that is gone they are very vulnerable.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:I think that there is a secret in the Congo system and it's wormhole that will be a problem for the MA. I believe that the MA knew of this wormhole and it was because of it that the Congo system was so important to the MA.

We know for certain that the Alignment knew of the Torch wormhole--that's why they placed a squadron of ships on the other side of the wormhole. We have textev that the Alignment intended this wormhole to be their secret backdoor into the Haven Quadrant once they began military operations. They can live without that backdoor; the biggest problem the Alignment has with enemies controlling Torch is that the wormhole also leads indirectly to Darius. It is Darius that the Alignment is desperate to keep hidden from Torch and the Grand Alliance. That's the real secret of Torch that you are referring to. It's not clear how the GA could take advantage of this, even if they figure it out, because David has repeatedly told us that an invasion through a properly defended wormhole is nearly impossible. But the wormhole is clearly an issue for the Alignment.

Is this info about the a squadron of ships and Mesa's knowledge of the wormhole in the books? If so, I am greatly disappointed in myself for having totally missed such an important clue to events. I remember the survey ship going through the wormhole and not experiencing anything much out of the ordinary. Other than that there were some non-ordinary features about the wormhole, I think on the far side from Torch. Were there hidden MA ships there keeping an eye on things?

In any case, the way I would write the story, people would be naturally curious about what is on the far side of the Torch wormhole and general exploration would ensue. One of these ships would stumble onto evidence of the MA, after all, everybody is looking for the MA these days, and that ship would become lost/destroyed for it's discovery. Which, after a series of complicated events, would end up with a squadron of heavy cruisers going out to take a look to see what was up. However it gets written, I believe that the domino's will fall, and the discovery of Darius will happen.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:I believe that in the MA's plans Haven was to have destroyed Manticore and the fact that they have joined forces is a big problem for the MA plans.

We know this for a fact, from infodumps from David. The Alignment had been setting Haven up for a couple hundred years to be the wrecking ball that knocked the League over. When Manticore became too powerful, the Alignment started adjusting their plans so they could use Manticore in that role instead, but they needed to use Haven to keep Manticore from getting too big. Whichever tool they used (Manticore or Haven), the Alignment wanted that tool to be too weakened in the conflict with the League to be a threat to the Alignment's plans. The alliance completely wrecks that aspect of the plan.

Yes! And the GA is going to further mess up the plans of MA by wildly accelerating the destruction of the SL. The GA will be able to quickly respond to these rapidly changing events in the SL and start to create alliances with what ever the SL evolves into. Manticore could start by helping systems in the OLD-SL recover their inter system trade. Not just by supplying cargo ships to haul things but by also providing technology, maybe helping them start to build their own cargo ships. The last thing that the MA would want to do would be to make the OLD-SL members think they were trapped into using only GA cargo ships. That would make them feel like the "captive" systems in the verge.

The MA having to work from the extreme distance of Darius would be at an extreme disadvantage in trying to respond to these rapidly changing events in the OLD-SL. Totally screwing up any long range, slow moving century long plans they would have had in place.

TREECATS!!
I totally forgot to mention how I thought treecats are going to totally screw up MA plans. Treecats are going to give the governments of the GA a tool to find the MA operatives. This will further hinder any MA activities in the GA systems. No more agents in key locations in the GA governments to guide things along. That has got to cause severe problems to the MA plans.