The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

SharkHunter wrote:Referring to the "occupation" of Mesa, I picture it in three phases, the "first" part is already complete: the slave areas and secce areas each already isolated from each other, because the secce bosses are already still in charge of their areas, which are from what I can tell in a big ceramcrete doughnut shaped "cofferdam" around the "30% "freeborn". The 30% are still protected by the OPS, MISD, and "Peacekeeper Forces", except that those three have pretty much been emasculated because the GA (likely 10th Fleet) holds the high orbitals. They're vulnerable and probably close to major losses of bowel control, of course. We don't know what is going on in the "genetic slave areas".

Phase 2 is the the liberation part, and that's going to take the liason of a big chunk of Torch forces including a lot of "peacetime soldiers", under Palane's command, augmented by a lot of the better secce bosses. The exact analog is the occupation forces in Japan 1945-1948, something I understand pretty darn well because my father was one of them. I later lived in Japan btw, and met folks in rural Japanese communities who thanked me for being an American because of the example of my dad. They've even got their WMD two destroyed areas.

That's when the hell holes get cleaned up also. Lower "Radomsko" gets subdivided between Neu Rostok and the Hancock survivors and all the gangs there are pretty much wiped out. It's also when the Mesan forces are disarmed by the GA, and the process of criminal prosecution and for the lack of a better word "de-superiorization" is going to take place. That's not going to be done under Torch control, duh. That's the "MacArthur" role.

Speaking of which...I wonder if RMN investigators find the rest of the paperwork from Mesa Pharmaceuticals which announce why "Verdant Vista" didn't shift to automated production to begin with... aka because the MAlign told them not to. They get into the Jessyk Combine and Axelrod's "books", etc. and discover the who, what, and why all the way in terms of corrupted individuals in Silesian and SL systems, all the way back to before Edward Saganami. Etc...

Meanwhile 60% of the planetary population is... going to be co-opted by Torch to not go into mass destruction mode against their former overlords because said overlords are in the process of being turned into paupers, jailed, hung or shot by firing squad, and maybe the rest resettled in migratory chunks off world where they can do no harm. I dunno. Who is going to do that? forces under the control of... Thandi Palane.

Then you have the final phase: withdrawal, and that's not going to happen until the two big groups (slaves and secces) are playing nicely with each other, there's a functioning constitution that guarantees human rights a la the Beowulf / Haven / Maya / Manticore satisfaction level, and the GA is ready to head off because the freeborn are defanged, demilitarized, and de- "in-charged".

That's when I personally think Mesa becomes the 2nd Planet in the "Kingdom of Torch", because it removes the star system from MAlign control forever, and because again: Berry Zilwicki has the loyalty of ALL of the major important players and personalities, and NO ONE ELSE can get it. Under that scenario, ALL Mesan Alignment ships get taken over by who? the RTN navy, of course, ably abetted by... the Maya/Erewhon alliance. Once a new MSDF is in play, the newly enlarged RTN then goes after ALL of the Manpower depots in the rest of the galaxy from their "second headquarters planet". I think Thandi's home planet becomes the third member of Berry's allied systems, btw.

Of course, since I'm not the author, YMMV [which I finally figured out to be "your mileage may vary"].

n7axw wrote:A couple of things to respond to here... Torch supplying liasion people, yes. Torch in control, no. For one thing Torch is too self-interested to fill a roll where everybody needs to know that their lives and property are going to be protected from violence. Secondly Torch doesn't begin to have the resourses needed for an occupation.

Secondly, those gang bosses you referred to are going to be invaluable for the near term future because they were the ones providing governance for their neighborhoods in the seccie areas and are probably the best avenue for approaching the slaves.

kzt wrote:An SD fighting without a wedge, sidewalls or CMs against a squadron of cruisers at 2m KM bombarding it with missiles will get turned into swiss cheese and do no damage to the cruisers. Hell, at a million KM they can probably take it with energy weapons, though they might take some losses.

But it won't be a bunch of cruisers, it will be a bunch of mines.

Jonathan_S wrote:Remember that when Manticore was worried about a Havenite wormhole assualt they were worried about a mass transit of 50 SDs or 88 BBs (200 mtons each from two termini). Enough to potentially saturate the defenders and have plenty left 5 (or so) minutes after transit when they finally clear the arrival lane and can really start fighting back. (At which point the sims were saying they might fight to mutual annihilation with the Junction defenses). Try it with a smaller force and you don't even gain that from your suicidal attack.

SharkHunter wrote:Sort of combining thoughts from several current and past threads regarding what comes next. Obviously ALL of our guesses, surmises, and tactical thoughts have to get dropped in RFC/MWW's tum-tee tum tum jar until further notice, but heck, we're all aspiring armchair admirals and tacticians, so...

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...

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:A couple of things to respond to here... Torch supplying liasion people, yes. Torch in control, no. For one thing Torch is too self-interested to fill a roll where everybody needs to know that their lives and property are going to be protected from violence. Secondly Torch doesn't begin to have the resourses needed for an occupation.

Secondly, those gang bosses you referred to are going to be invaluable for the near term future because they were the ones providing governance for their neighborhoods in the seccie areas and are probably the best avenue for approaching the slaves.

I wasn't joking about Queen Thandi and King Victor.

Thandi has already established "Cred" with Seccies, Slaves, and gang Bosses.

Victor has probably more experience dealing with revolutions and revolutionaries than anyone except Kevin Usher.

Both would have the full support of Queen Berry, Louis Rozhack (and the Maya Sector,) Haven, Honor Harrington (plus Manticore and the RMN as represented by Michelle Henke,) and Beowulf's Survey Corps.

Thandi was requested by name for truce talks because she was seen as a reasonable outsider despite connections to Seccie leaders and the Ballroom.

Thandi and Victor are present and in control; any change should be to support the status quo and not disrupt the delicate balance Thandi and Victor have established.

Given Thandi's position as "Great Kaja" at the top of Torch military forces, that would logically place Torch in overall command with support from all Torch's treaty partners -- which is just about everyone except the MAlign. The only way to avoid Torch being in overall command is for Thandi (and Victor) to renounce any association with Torch and become Queen and King (consort.)

StealthSeeker wrote:Someone in this thread made a point of the fact that invading through a wormhole is in general a bad idea. That person also included thoughts attributed to Mr. Weber that confirmed this line of reasoning.

Another post, regarding the “twins” location, stated that more than likely the MA has now built forts at the twins to take care of any further incursions through the Torch wormhole.

But how likely is it that such a fort would be built there? The MA had to rush a Mannerheim squadron to the location to take care of the survey ship under pretenses of protecting Mannerheim interests because MA didn't have the resources for that. So now the MA is suddenly going to find the resources to build a fort in that location? Doesn't seem likely. And besides, the wormhole that lead to the twins from Felix is suppose to be one of the 2 “hidden” wormholes! How could the MA suddenly start sending enough resources down a wormhole they are trying to keep secrete to build a fort? Again this doesn't seem likely. The most likely scenario is that they keep some small squadron of cruisers on station at the most.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:An SD fighting without a wedge, sidewalls or CMs against a squadron of cruisers at 2m KM bombarding it with missiles will get turned into swiss cheese and do no damage to the cruisers. Hell, at a million KM they can probably take it with energy weapons, though they might take some losses.

But it won't be a bunch of cruisers, it will be a bunch of mines.

Yep.

Stealthseaker - Even if it's 'just' a bunch of battlecruisers expect to lose (crippled or destroyed) 3-4 SDs per BC getting clear of the inbound 'lane'.

Though at that point the remaining SDs can bring up their wedges, sidewalls, CMs, deploy their decoys, and generally stop being near defenseless targets and transition to unstoppable killing machines.

Mines, energy bouys, and pre-deployed missile pods just make it even worse for the attackers.



Remember that when Manticore was worried about a Havenite wormhole assualt they were worried about a mass transit of 50 SDs or 88 BBs (200 mtons each from two termini). Enough to potentially saturate the defenders and have plenty left 5 (or so) minutes after transit when they finally clear the arrival lane and can really start fighting back. (At which point the sims were saying they might fight to mutual annihilation with the Junction defenses). Try it with a smaller force and you don't even gain that from your suicidal attack.