Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:But the gripping fights ahead are likely to be against the MAN, not the SLN. The League is just a big patsy now. It's less an enemy than a failed state - failed superpower! - the disintegration of which calls for management. The Alignment, it's an enemy.

That would be quite fine with me too Jeff and in the past I have expressed a desire for said confrontations in the next installment. Except that most everyone thinks that the Malign are best served by staying in the shadows.

So, if you all think the Malign are going to remain hidden and that the SLN are pansies, then I guess there's no one left to fight but the Stilties.

Can't have your cake, lick the icing and eat it too.

Poor Medusans....

I'm sure the Alignment would like to remain in the shadows. I'm sure going even deeper into them would be a smart move for them. But I do not think they have a free choice there.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:The key thing that Theisman realized about the LAC's at least was that they were most devastating as a surprise. Once you knew about them, they "only" mean that the enemy has an ability to put out remarkably fast, hard-to-hit subwaller screening units in-system in CLAC-wing lots for far less crew and cash commitment than before. But like the podlayer and unlike the MDM, that's the sort of thing that you can make up for with a massive quantitative advantage.

I get that, and it's a good point about the 2 phases. But I still think Haven overestimated the effect Shrikes might have on wallers. They weren't just using CLACs to provide counter-LAC screen on BC raids. During Thunderbolt they were bringing along lots of LACs to screen their podlayers; to deter Manticore from sending their LACs against the wall (something that we know Manticore would do only in desperation - and with minimal effect even if no screen was present.

Even Haven's pre-war sims had Manticoran Shrikes and Ferrets attempting to blow through the screening Cimeterres to engage the Havenite wall. That's still (to my mind) overrating the threat LACs pose to an intact wall.

In Thunderbolt I think the only times Mantie LACs even tried to engage podnaughts was systems that had nothing else, and Grendelsbane. Both desperation scenarios. Even at Sidemore Honor possitioned them so Haven had to honor the threat of LAC strikes; but declined to expose them to the defensive fire of a wall (though they were able to go after cripples)

So I think Thunderbolt would have been virtually as successful even without every developing a CLAC/counter-LAC doctrine. But their LACs do have obvious advantages for discouraging CLAC raids of tertiary systems; or to keep defending LACs off of BC or cruiser raids. And even pre-Thunderbolt they'd realized the missile defense advantages all those LACs could provide.

I think Thunderbolt may have run into a couple problems had they tried it with neither CLAC's and Cimeterres nor an anti-LAC doctrine. The first problem would have been Manticoran LAC's, which under conditions like that could do a good piece of mischief (like kills on deployed pods, for instance). The second problem, a lot worse, would have been flag officers with plenty of good reason to be hesitant and concerned about those LAC's and what they may do.

After Buttercup, the RHN needed all the hand-holding and reassurance it could get about super-LAC's and MDM's podlayers. Its own of both would be the perfect solution, and did the trick. Plans to handle LAC's with screening units and a prepared wall, that would have worked well too. But even apart from that, MDM's need missile defense, and LAC's provide that much better per unit crew and cost than the destroyers, cruisers, and wall itself. So if and when Cimeterres could ease off the anti-LAC role, another was known and waiting for them and they were designed for it as well.

Jonathan_S wrote:The question, in some ways, is:
1) has the League been hurt enough to learn from? (Enough to shake up not just the active battlefleet; but the R&D firms, the contractors, the people holding the purse strings and letting the contract)
2) have they been hit by enough things to learn from? (or are there other critical capabilities that they are, as yet, unaware of)
3) are they cohesive enough to avoid simply shattering while they try to rebuild and restructure based on what they've (so painfully) learned.

I guess we'll have to see. But I would like some more good space battles.

The League would need the "right" answer to all three questions.

I'll grant (1) (finally).

(2) is iffy - too much of what makes the difference is still in black boxes from the Solarian point of view, but they may well be able to make comparable stuff work in other ways. (The Cataphract is a wonderful way of putting capabilities you do have to work to get an approximation of something based on capabilities you do not.)

(3) is the kicker. Putting together a modern fleet without revenue or public confidence, without any practice, and without any expectation that you were not the best of the best of the best until some year and a half ago... is not fast or easy, and the League hasn't the time for solutions that aren't fast or the gumption for ones that aren't easy.

The people in the League who do have that gumption are hiding in old offices conspiring, or kicked off flagships for "defeatism". Bless their hearts, and I admire every one of them. But they're not running the show and it's too late to start listening to them. What good they can do professionally is for other states yet to come.

cthia wrote:

Jeff Engel wrote:But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

But I can't Jeff. I just can't. Owe it in part to my intellectual shortcomings.

I suppose the other part is the buildup, that a certain writer is responsible for, in my head, of this looming super juggernaut, that in the end, just doesn't deliver, and even fails to put up a respectable fight.

And the fact that the League never went to the drawing board and actually planned an assault. Every single battle was instigated by the Malign, not planned by the League. Not saying it'd make a difference. Still.

But okay, you all grow weary of my wishing well. So I'll attempt to keep my wishes to myself ...

But they still exist. Still ... exist.

Kizarvexis wrote:I agree cthia. There are numerous mentions in the books to support the SLN getting its act together.

1. First Lord Alexander saying that the RMN could run wild, until the SLN developed the same tech and then rolled them over.

2. Cpt al-Fanudahi explaining to Cpt Teague that while the SLN may be behind the times, that doesn't mean the SL is in terms of R&D. (end of Storm From the Shadows).

3. Haven keeping within shouting distance of the Manties, every time it looked like the Manties had the knock-out punch.

4. The numerous times the Darwinian nature of combat, where you learn or die, are mentioned in the books. The SLN now has a lot of personnel who have seen the elephant. And not all of them are prisoners in Spindle or Manticore.

5. For a historical analogy, besides Hamish Alexander as Adm Yamamoto, the US military at the beginning of WWII wasn't in the best of shape. The military equipment in general deployment was outdated compared to the Axis and the doctrine was lacking. The landing and campaign in North Africa started badly and there was a learning curve for the US Army. The same can be said for the US Navy in the Atlantic and Pacific at the beginning of the war. But the US learned and translated that learning to the new soldiers.

Sure, the SLN hasn't had to fight a real war in centuries and SL population is living in a cocoon. But cocoons can open and one thing the bureaucracy of the SL has not wanted to do according to their statements in the books, is to wake up the populace as to how things are really working. Pressure from the various civilian governments could force change on the SLN.

I have a distinct feeling that Adm Crandall and Adm Byng are the exception rather than the rule for SLN flag officers. Adm Filareta had a brain, which is why the MAlign had setup Adm Daniels to push the button on the SLN attack on Manticore. All three were put into place by the MAlign, so I would not infer their competence on the rest of the SLN. Lt Maitland, Cpt Mizawa, Cpt Irene Teague would be more like what I expect the average SLN officer to be. Expecting that the SLN is the premier navy, but intellectually honest enough to learn otherwise.

6. The SDFs sent observers to the Haven Sector all during the wars. We don't know what some of them have been developing on their own.

7. And 6 leads right into the Maya sector. Who knows what other sector governors have been doing with or without the help of some of the SDFs.

Do I think the SL will do a 180 and save themselves from destruction? No, but I don't see the SL being an easy pushover either. RFC hasn't written that way in the past and I don't see him changing.

Besides the League, I would be acting out of character if I didn't expound on this. Especially after Kizarvexis helped lay the foundation. And because, before the chapter of this particular discussion is closed, I'd like to get a few things off my chest, before these things grow into boobs.

The League yet remains an inviolable enemy. They have not yet been broken where it matters -- in their hearts. The constituent population isn't even aware of what has happened. When they do, they are not apt to be screaming surrender. They are going to be screaming retribution. Especially if the League carefully feeds them amenable propaganda reminiscent of the feeding given to constituents of the German war machine. Age-old institutional arrogance from the Navy breeds and supports age-old pride in its constituents.

Expecting the League to just roll over is like expecting the US to roll over during the initial engagement in the Pacific when they were outnumbered and behind in warships, yet had a decisive R&D richness and an industrial might rivaling the Empire of Rome. It is like expecting the proud constituents of the US to accept defeat when Pearl Harbor was attacked because the Japanese Fleet had flexed its muscles. It is like expecting the Americans to surrender when the British burned Washington, destroyed the Capital then marched up Pennsylvania Avenue and burned the Presidents home.

The American coastline had even been blockaded, just as it is now with the Solarians.

The Germans didn't respect the US before they entered the war. After all, The United States was a nation ranked 19th in the world's militaries in 1939. However, it emerged six years later as the planet's only superpower. That's because of its industrial might, the very same industrial might(on steroids) presently enjoyed by the League! It did it in only six years!! So what, if the SLN isn't so highly ranked.

Everyone is always harping on the vastness of space, but lose that sense of vastness at the most self-serving, opportune times, or harping on the size of the League but similarly losing that same sense of perspective at similar self-serving times. Selective memory -- we males are often prone to that malfunction.

RFC has built-up the League to be a gargantuan powerhouse that will lower the hammer on any disrespectful upstart. Again, a tenet that has remained constant throughout the storyline. Yet, to date, the League has failed to put up a single respectable fight. Not one. Every skirmish in the Haven sector was of rogue elements ill-prepared, ill-led, and ill-fed -- or whom at least ill-consumed military intelligence. I can not swallow that the League will just yield all of itself to defeat without even trying, to act so out of character, learned from centuries of action.

Sure, they cannot trade hulls and lives for missiles. Nor do I think they would. What I think they'll do, or should do, is gather all of its competent officers and all of its key R&D personnel and have a sit-down. Part of being a admiral worth your weight in brass is knowing how to utilize your resources. All of your resources. Part of being advisors to the admirals is knowing what these resources are. And ask the right questions with the right attitude. "We are in this predicament. What can you do for the Navy, for your nation?" Fire any and all assholes telling you what you can't do, instead of putting forth ideas of what you can. Wake up that industrial powerhouse! Kick it into gear!

From whence will the financial support come, to build this new war machine without being able to raise the tax base? Therein lies where, I think, one of the largest mistakes made regarding the League. Pfft! There is so much money being wasted in the League daily, on corrupt enterprises, government officials, Navy officials and sloppy accounting that seriously buckling down, the tax base need not be raised. But that's only a minor point. Failing to capitalize on patriotic pride, duty and a sense of the "Red, White and Blue" is the League's biggest mistake at the moment. They are presently not trying to save the League, they are trying to save their own corrupt selves. There will come a point in time when that will no longer be an attractive option. When self-preservation wins out. I think that time has come. And if the League falls, corrupt officials fall even harder. Take the matter to your patriotic constituents and allow them to determine their own fate. As has been said, the League is huge, and the "patriotic core" of the Core worlds is also huge. The impetus gathered from the patriotic core of the Core worlds could be harnessed to impose their own will on the holdouts. The League hasn't splintered yet, and antsy Core worlds still have to fear the League even if the GA doesn't.

If a small Manticore could stick it to a much larger industrial opponent in Haven, because of a few technologically inclined enterprising thinkers as a Sonja Hemphill, how many Hemphills per a much bigger populace has the League?

Alexander-Harrington never made the mistake of theorizing an ultimate defeat of the League with missiles in a long drawn out campaign, the Manties were hoping to achieve their own version of the short, victorious war, but not in terms of a military engagement. Because they knew that that just isn't realistic. They were hoping to defeat the League politically, psychologically, and from within. But the time hasn't come just yet. The GA hasn't fought off an actual SLN fleet whose metronome has been adjusted to the new tune of naval warfare in the Haven sector. The League hasn't even tried yet. The RMN/GA has only fought rogue elements ill-prepared. Ill equipped. Ill-planned.

Will the League have the time to accomplish this? Of course not. I agree with you all on that count. The GA will not give the League the time it needs to ultimately win. Ultimately, that is. But the League will have the time to mount a League sanctioned formal attempt. There is no way in hell the League is going to surrender to collapse, to a bunch of neobarbaristic upstarts, because they temporarily enjoy a qualitative advantage. If the enemy thinks that, then fine, that is their first mistake. The SLN will just enjoy a bit of a built-in reprieve, as the truce had afforded St. Just from bamboozling that idiot sitting on a High Ridge to accept. As you all, I recall certain Senior SLN officers smartly acknowleding present Manty technological qualitative advantage. Acknowkedging, mind you. But I failed to hear, even between the lines, anything even remotely regarding surrender.

The League is facing defeat. Alexander Harrington's plan is sound, but the League isn't a bunch of idiots. They see it too. Look what Beowulf has started. At best, the League has come face to face with its own mortality. Death has a fortunate side effect of focusing one's thoughts and energies.

The League hasn't been defeated yet. The League is more than the sum of its ships or reach of its missiles. The League is a collection of formidable industrial resources, of formidable potential economic resources. Of formidable manpower, of formidable R&D, of formidable resolve. The same axiom proved time after time by Manticore itself, less the manpower.

Until the GA defeats at least one formal fleet, truly representing the might of the League, then the League remains a violable entity. Or RFC has misrepresented and miswritten storyline. I doubt that.

I see one small problem with your analysis. Very few people consider themselves "Solarians." The vast vast majority of people who live in the SL consider themselves Beowulfers or Visigoths or citizens of what ever planet they are from. There is no "patriotic pride, duty and a sense of the 'Red, White and Blue'" For most people in the Honorverse, watching the League fall would be analagus to most of us watching the United Nations or NATO fall apart. The League has exactly as much influence on a Solly's life as the UN has on most Terran's today. Not much.

Why would somebody willingly stand up to fight and die for something that they don't consider themselves a part of? Why would a system government be willing to give infinitely more money than they give now to shore up a treaty organization?

I suspect that the reason the SLN is able to recruit the numbers of people it has is not because of any sence of "League pride," but because of the benefits it offers (something akin to the GI Bill, steady pay, etc.) and the fact that it is probably one of the safest jobs in explored space.

In the first two years of the US war in Iraq, approximately 5,500 US troops deserted, a more than 5000% increase over the two years prior to the start of the war. And this is in a military that constantly has small scale conflicts and still has veterans alive from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and The Gulf War. People don't join the SLN to fight, they join it for the job. How many SLN veterans are alive that have had a friend die in combat? Once the spacers realize they might die, they will not fight.

cthia wrote:Besides the League, I would be acting out of character if I didn't expound on this. Especially after Kizarvexis helped lay the foundation. And because, before the chapter of this particular discussion is closed, I'd like to get a few things off my chest, before these things grow into boobs.

The League yet remains an inviolable enemy. They have not yet been broken where it matters -- in their hearts. The constituent population isn't even aware of what has happened. When they do, they are not apt to be screaming surrender. They are going to be screaming retribution. Especially if the League carefully feeds them amenable propaganda reminiscent of the feeding given to constituents of the German war machine. Age-old institutional arrogance from the Navy breeds and supports age-old pride in its constituents.

Expecting the League to just roll over is like expecting the US to roll over during the initial engagement in the Pacific when they were outnumbered and behind in warships, yet had a decisive R&D richness and an industrial might rivaling the Empire of Rome. It is like expecting the proud constituents of the US to accept defeat when Pearl Harbor was attacked because the Japanese Fleet had flexed its muscles. It is like expecting the Americans to surrender when the British burned Washington, destroyed the Capital then marched up Pennsylvania Avenue and burned the Presidents home.

A major flaw with those analogies is that the Solarian League is not the attacked party here, as America was in both of those scenarios. They are the belligerents - filling the roles of Imperial Japan and the British Empire; only with less success. The Solarian redcoats(all half million of them) got nowhere near Manticore's Landing City.

If you wish to paint the League as America, I think a better comparision might be the more recent conflicts of Korea and Vietnam, in which the willingness of the USA population to be at war was nowhere near as high as it was during WW2.

The visibility of the "threat" has an effect - and so far, the visible events are:
1) SLN BCs blows away three RMN destroyers in a neutral system.
2) O'Hanaran's faked sensor readings refuting the above(later retracted).
3) Crandall's SDs attack Spindle and are defeated without firing a shot.
4) Manty freighters start disappearing(may not really be apparent to Joe Solly - how many people on Earth follow the movements of freighters?)
5) News of various wormholes being blockaded trickle around.(again, may not really register highly. A blockade of the Panama canal means little to Europeans and of Suez means little to Americans).
6) The SLN sends the biggest fleet ever assembled by anyone in human history to Manticore - without officially declaring war. It isn't just defeated, it is crushed.
7) Beowulf, pretty much the 'first amongst equals' of the League founders, decides to leave. Everyone who has prolong has heard of Beowulf.

That series of events isn't going to produce overwhelming support for a war with Manticore. Certainly not compared with, say, a pair of SD(P)s showing up in every League system, destroying the orbital infrastructures and blowing up capital cities.

Much snipping, because crewdude48 is right on with the "small" problem with the analysis: zero League patriotism. But since there's a bit more to say -

cthia wrote:From whence will the financial support come, to build this new war machine without being able to raise the tax base? Therein lies where, I think, one of the largest mistakes made regarding the League. Pfft! There is so much money being wasted in the League daily, on corrupt enterprises, government officials, Navy officials and sloppy accounting that seriously buckling down, the tax base need not be raised. But that's only a minor point. Failing to capitalize on patriotic pride, duty and a sense of the "Red, White and Blue" is the League's biggest mistake at the moment. They are presently not trying to save the League, they are trying to save their own corrupt selves. There will come a point in time when that will no longer be an attractive option. When self-preservation wins out. I think that time has come. And if the League falls, corrupt officials fall even harder. Take the matter to your patriotic constituents and allow them to determine their own fate. As has been said, the League is huge, and the "patriotic core" of the Core worlds is also huge. The impetus gathered from the patriotic core of the Core worlds could be harnessed to impose their own will on the holdouts. The League hasn't splintered yet, and antsy Core worlds still have to fear the League even if the GA doesn't.

One lesson that a whole lot of corrupt sorts will draw from Silesia, Monica, and Meyers is, if you can take a check and leave, or back down and cooperate, you can save your nasty, vicious, grotesquely corrupt hide and even position under Manticore's terms. You won't be able to keep carrying on quite as usual - and the closer Manticore is, the less tolerance they will have. (Compare standards in Silesia with what Monica's political establishment got: in the first case, you're subject to Manticoran law; in the second, your domestic position remains entirely the same.) But the deal Manticore is making for former parts of the Solarian League is that very independent one: don't mess with Manticore, don't create trouble with neighbors, don't actually participate in slavery, and we'll hold our noses about the rest.

So the sweetheart deals, the graft, the corruption, all that is supposed to be swept aside on a wave of righteous Solarian pride to Teach Perfidious Manticore a Lesson - are not on the table. No, those powers will be looking to see what they can do in a post-League future, that's safe for them and their interests. At worst, they can draw off liquid assets, run off to the wild frontier, and live like kings under assumed identities.

No one is going to be the last plutocrat on the barricades defending Solarian pork.

cthia wrote:RFC has built-up the League to be a gargantuan powerhouse that will lower the hammer on any disrespectful upstart. Again, a tenet that has remained constant throughout the storyline.

Ah yes, another bit - RFC has represented the SLN as the 800 pound gorilla as the nearly unquestioned article of faith of the people in the universe. It's not Word of God. And that measure has been because (1) the League has been treated as a monolith, not a brittle organization, and (2) sheer quantitative value of the SLN has historically been overwhelming and the last word.

Realizing (1) is not so requires, in universe, an act of peculiar imagination, both historical and political. Really getting that, without a lot of encouragement, has been the achievement of two people outside the Alignment: Honor Alexander-Harrington and Thomas Theisman, two people with remarkable historical perspective as a combination of first-hand experience moving and shaking things, and their own study. So you've got a fine explanation ready at hand for the dissonance between the Solarian rep and the Solarian reality.

SLN quantity beating whoever's quality did rely on the qualitative differential not being huge and the quantitative one remaining so. The Haven Sector wars have changed both of those - quality mostly, but quantity too. The SLN isn't the 800 pound gorilla anymore. It's the 800 pound couch potato that figures it can kick all the butt it cares to because it regularly beats up pixels on its gaming system on Easy on the couch. But again, coming to terms with the totality of that isn't going to be easy for anyone.

cthia wrote:From whence will the financial support come, to build this new war machine without being able to raise the tax base? Therein lies where, I think, one of the largest mistakes made regarding the League. Pfft! There is so much money being wasted in the League daily, on corrupt enterprises, government officials, Navy officials and sloppy accounting that seriously buckling down, the tax base need not be raised.

Even as massive as the levels of corruption are in the League, I suspect expenses purely due to waste, fraud, and abuse are almost certainly a rounding error in the League budget (or at least significantly less than the SLN's actual budget for R&D and new construction, which need to be orders of magnitude larger to keep pace with the GA). There's so much money going around in funding a large navy that you don't need to skim off more than a small percentage to get an insane amount of money for an individual and quite a lot for even the largest trans-stellars.

cthia wrote:"cthia"]"Jeff Engel"]
But its day is over; its time, come. Quit looking for a fight out of it.

But I can't Jeff. I just can't. Owe it in part to my intellectual shortcomings.

I suppose the other part is the buildup, that a certain writer is responsible for, in my head, of this looming super juggernaut, that in the end, just doesn't deliver, and even fails to put up a respectable fight.

And the fact that the League never went to the drawing board and actually planned an assault. Every single battle was instigated by the Malign, not planned by the League. Not saying it'd make a difference. Still.

But okay, you all grow weary of my wishing well. So I'll attempt to keep my wishes to myself ...

But they still exist. Still ... exist. [/quote]

Kizarvexis wrote:I agree cthia. There are numerous mentions in the books to support the SLN getting its act together.

1. First Lord Alexander saying that the RMN could run wild, until the SLN developed the same tech and then rolled them over.

2. Cpt al-Fanudahi explaining to Cpt Teague that while the SLN may be behind the times, that doesn't mean the SL is in terms of R&D. (end of Storm From the Shadows).

3. Haven keeping within shouting distance of the Manties, every time it looked like the Manties had the knock-out punch.

4. The numerous times the Darwinian nature of combat, where you learn or die, are mentioned in the books. The SLN now has a lot of personnel who have seen the elephant. And not all of them are prisoners in Spindle or Manticore.

5. For a historical analogy, besides Hamish Alexander as Adm Yamamoto, the US military at the beginning of WWII wasn't in the best of shape. The military equipment in general deployment was outdated compared to the Axis and the doctrine was lacking. The landing and campaign in North Africa started badly and there was a learning curve for the US Army. The same can be said for the US Navy in the Atlantic and Pacific at the beginning of the war. But the US learned and translated that learning to the new soldiers.

Sure, the SLN hasn't had to fight a real war in centuries and SL population is living in a cocoon. But cocoons can open and one thing the bureaucracy of the SL has not wanted to do according to their statements in the books, is to wake up the populace as to how things are really working. Pressure from the various civilian governments could force change on the SLN.

I have a distinct feeling that Adm Crandall and Adm Byng are the exception rather than the rule for SLN flag officers. Adm Filareta had a brain, which is why the MAlign had setup Adm Daniels to push the button on the SLN attack on Manticore. All three were put into place by the MAlign, so I would not infer their competence on the rest of the SLN. Lt Maitland, Cpt Mizawa, Cpt Irene Teague would be more like what I expect the average SLN officer to be. Expecting that the SLN is the premier navy, but intellectually honest enough to learn otherwise.

6. The SDFs sent observers to the Haven Sector all during the wars. We don't know what some of them have been developing on their own.

7. And 6 leads right into the Maya sector. Who knows what other sector governors have been doing with or without the help of some of the SDFs.

Do I think the SL will do a 180 and save themselves from destruction? No, but I don't see the SL being an easy pushover either. RFC hasn't written that way in the past and I don't see him changing.

Besides the League, I would be acting out of character if I didn't expound on this. Especially after Kizarvexis helped lay the foundation. And because, before the chapter of this particular discussion is closed, I'd like to get a few things off my chest, before these things grow into boobs.

The League yet remains an inviolable enemy. They have not yet been broken where it matters -- in their hearts. The constituent population isn't even aware of what has happened. When they do, they are not apt to be screaming surrender. They are going to be screaming retribution. Especially if the League carefully feeds them amenable propaganda reminiscent of the feeding given to constituents of the German war machine. Age-old institutional arrogance from the Navy breeds and supports age-old pride in its constituents.

Expecting the League to just roll over is like expecting the US to roll over during the initial engagement in the Pacific when they were outnumbered and behind in warships, yet had a decisive R&D richness and an industrial might rivaling the Empire of Rome. It is like expecting the proud constituents of the US to accept defeat when Pearl Harbor was attacked because the Japanese Fleet had flexed its muscles. It is like expecting the Americans to surrender when the British burned Washington, destroyed the Capital then marched up Pennsylvania Avenue and burned the Presidents home.

The American coastline had even been blockaded, just as it is now with the Solarians.

The Germans didn't respect the US before they entered the war. After all, The United States was a nation ranked 19th in the world's militaries in 1939. However, it emerged six years later as the planet's only superpower. That's because of its industrial might, the very same industrial might(on steroids) presently enjoyed by the League! It did it in only six years!! So what, if the SLN isn't so highly ranked.

Everyone is always harping on the vastness of space, but lose that sense of vastness at the most self-serving, opportune times, or harping on the size of the League but similarly losing that same sense of perspective at similar self-serving times. Selective memory -- we males are often prone to that malfunction.

RFC has built-up the League to be a gargantuan powerhouse that will lower the hammer on any disrespectful upstart. Again, a tenet that has remained constant throughout the storyline. Yet, to date, the League has failed to put up a single respectable fight. Not one. Every skirmish in the Haven sector was of rogue elements ill-prepared, ill-led, and ill-fed -- or whom at least ill-consumed military intelligence. I can not swallow that the League will just yield all of itself to defeat without even trying, to act so out of character, learned from centuries of action.

Sure, they cannot trade hulls and lives for missiles. Nor do I think they would. What I think they'll do, or should do, is gather all of its competent officers and all of its key R&D personnel and have a sit-down. Part of being a admiral worth your weight in brass is knowing how to utilize your resources. All of your resources. Part of being advisors to the admirals is knowing what these resources are. And ask the right questions with the right attitude. "We are in this predicament. What can you do for the Navy, for your nation?" Fire any and all assholes telling you what you can't do, instead of putting forth ideas of what you can. Wake up that industrial powerhouse! Kick it into gear!

From whence will the financial support come, to build this new war machine without being able to raise the tax base? Therein lies where, I think, one of the largest mistakes made regarding the League. Pfft! There is so much money being wasted in the League daily, on corrupt enterprises, government officials, Navy officials and sloppy accounting that seriously buckling down, the tax base need not be raised. But that's only a minor point. Failing to capitalize on patriotic pride, duty and a sense of the "Red, White and Blue" is the League's biggest mistake at the moment. They are presently not trying to save the League, they are trying to save their own corrupt selves. There will come a point in time when that will no longer be an attractive option. When self-preservation wins out. I think that time has come. And if the League falls, corrupt officials fall even harder. Take the matter to your patriotic constituents and allow them to determine their own fate. As has been said, the League is huge, and the "patriotic core" of the Core worlds is also huge. The impetus gathered from the patriotic core of the Core worlds could be harnessed to impose their own will on the holdouts. The League hasn't splintered yet, and antsy Core worlds still have to fear the League even if the GA doesn't.

If a small Manticore could stick it to a much larger industrial opponent in Haven, because of a few technologically inclined enterprising thinkers as a Sonja Hemphill, how many Hemphills per a much bigger populace has the League?

Alexander-Harrington never made the mistake of theorizing an ultimate defeat of the League with missiles in a long drawn out campaign, the Manties were hoping to achieve their own version of the short, victorious war, but not in terms of a military engagement. Because they knew that that just isn't realistic. They were hoping to defeat the League politically, psychologically, and from within. But the time hasn't come just yet. The GA hasn't fought off an actual SLN fleet whose metronome has been adjusted to the new tune of naval warfare in the Haven sector. The League hasn't even tried yet. The RMN/GA has only fought rogue elements ill-prepared. Ill equipped. Ill-planned.

Will the League have the time to accomplish this? Of course not. I agree with you all on that count. The GA will not give the League the time it needs to ultimately win. Ultimately, that is. But the League will have the time to mount a League sanctioned formal attempt. There is no way in hell the League is going to surrender to collapse, to a bunch of neobarbaristic upstarts, because they temporarily enjoy a qualitative advantage. If the enemy thinks that, then fine, that is their first mistake. The SLN will just enjoy a bit of a built-in reprieve, as the truce had afforded St. Just from bamboozling that idiot sitting on a High Ridge to accept. As you all, I recall certain Senior SLN officers smartly acknowleding present Manty technological qualitative advantage. Acknowkedging, mind you. But I failed to hear, even between the lines, anything even remotely regarding surrender.

The League is facing defeat. Alexander Harrington's plan is sound, but the League isn't a bunch of idiots. They see it too. Look what Beowulf has started. At best, the League has come face to face with its own mortality. Death has a fortunate side effect of focusing one's thoughts and energies.

The League hasn't been defeated yet. The League is more than the sum of its ships or reach of its missiles. The League is a collection of formidable industrial resources, of formidable potential economic resources. Of formidable manpower, of formidable R&D, of formidable resolve. The same axiom proved time after time by Manticore itself, less the manpower.

Until the GA defeats at least one formal fleet, truly representing the might of the League, then the League remains a violable entity. Or RFC has misrepresented and miswritten storyline. I doubt that.[/quote]


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Cthia, Jeff, Kizarvexis and all --

Kizarvexis' arguments are good and compelling; I agree with them. One of the other posters noted that the League itself has not been attacked. There is not a "Pearl Harbor" feeling / response because
(1) all current actions have been in Non-League space
(2) The general impression I have is SL citizens attitudes are more like US citizens prior to the US Civil (or un-Civil) War -- local State (or System) citizens before League citizens -- see R.E. Lee's loyalty to Virginia before the nation as a whole.
(3) The League Assembly vote, even with the propaganda blitz, had approx. 1/3 voting with Beowulf, and that was the core worlds, NOT the verge or OFS protectorates.

I believe the Maya Sector, and Meyers for that matter, are just the first fruits of the SL breakup that Barregos noted several years ago when he started his plans for Maya.

There ARE other sectors that will willingly break away. It will likely start with the Beowulf colony systems and those that voted with Beowulf, and the Verge sectors (like Maya) that have managed to prepare while keeping their SL central government masters in the dark.

-- Stewart