Honorverse ramblings and musings

Just as how we have been discussing the problems that Manticore (and Beowulf) face with not being able to just place those really effective RMN SDs "near" Beowulf, the Mandarins and the thinking part of the SLN have a very similar problem.

How do you not appear to interfere with what is going on with Beowulf and yet be able to make it turn out the way you want it.
Now, from the Beowulf (and Manticore) perspective, Beowulf wants to run the plebiscite, anticipate a "leave the League" vote and reestablish themselves as a independnet system able to operate without any oversight or SL obligations as they have under the present situation of the SL. It is not that Beowulf doesn't want ANY interaction with the League --or more particularly with other League members and other systems---it is that they find themselves being forced to be participants in things they are against for a host or reasons, not the least of which is what various powerful forces that control policy and regulations in the League want to do to Manticore. There is a lot of moral conviction tied up in Beowulf's position along with the generations long partnership (political, personal-intermarriage, business/trade) with Manticore.

From what we see of the actual control and operations of the League, it is a very corrupt buracracy (and they do seem to know it if not acknowledge it) system that is struggling to keep itself in power. That covers a lot of areas including the SL bureaucracy, the SLN as an institution, OFS-same, and a lot of personal /business interests that really want their power and money to keep flowing.

Beowulf leaving the League is -especialy the way the Mandarin's and the fossilized entrenched bureaucracy of the SLN- is the first gravel spill of an avalanche that will both break their rice bowls and quite possibley kill them. It means that the "System" WILL CHANGE and they will lose control.

Think about what Beowulf is representing. They don't need the SLN to protect them. They can/will do it themselves both for their own system and commerce. They abrogate ALL existing treaty and SL regulation/authority with the Beowulf System and it's nationals. It will not depend on SL agreements but will FULLY negotiate sperate agreements with any and all Systems that want to deal with Beowulf. It will send an AMBASSADOR to Earth (if it wants too along with treaty arrangements, not a delagate to the League Assembly.
This is not some tiny country (think Grand Fenwick or Genovia -to use a couple of fictional examples- playing in the edge of the big leagues, this is a major system asserting it's rights as a system.

If Beowulf can unilaterally end it's agreement with the League, the political, economic and military dynamics of a very large portion of human occupied space goes into flux. Everything changes and what the entrenced but so far unaccountable bureaucrats can't deal with is that EVERYTHING is going to fall out of their control.

The Mandarins....came to us from Ms. Hanrahan, the journalist, who is shown to us in the story line as having used the term to describe the top layer of unelected bureaucrats who actual run the League through thier manipulation of the various departments of the government with essentialy no control by the elected League officials nor the Member Systems. It is the worst kind of corrupt internal political and economic control.

cthia wrote:I'm aware that most League member states want to "secede from the union." After all, that, in no small part, is what Alexander-Harrington is counting on. However, I cannot believe that there are not any member states out of the very huge League that aren't loyal.

There will be some systems that see the League as worth defending, but once those who are going to secede do so, the remnant of the League -- those systems that self-identify as "Solarian" -- will be small enough that the GA/SEM can occupy and police them as necessary.

That's the "end game" of dealing with what's left after the fracture lines are all exploited and only the hard-core remains; that's when the velvet glove can come off and the iron fist can be applied.

Also, the Harrington Doctrine urges mutual defense and trade treaties with anyone who does secede; in practical terms, that is going to mean most of the current league membership is also going to be opposed to that hard-core remnant. IOW, as the Solarian League gets smaller, the GA is going to get bigger. Not every system is going to fully switch sides as Beowulf is expected to do, but there will probably be enough to, at least, double the GA ranks.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm aware that most League member states want to "secede from the union." After all, that, in no small part, is what Alexander-Harrington is counting on. However, I cannot believe that there are not any member states out of the very huge League that aren't loyal.

There will be some systems that see the League as worth defending, but once those who are going to secede do so, the remnant of the League -- those systems that self-identify as "Solarian" -- will be small enough that the GA/SEM can occupy and police them as necessary.

That's the "end game" of dealing with what's left after the fracture lines are all exploited and only the hard-core remains; that's when the velvet glove can come off and the iron fist can be applied.

Also, the Harrington Doctrine urges mutual defense and trade treaties with anyone who does secede; in practical terms, that is going to mean most of the current league membership is also going to be opposed to that hard-core remnant. IOW, as the Solarian League gets smaller, the GA is going to get bigger. Not every system is going to fully switch sides as Beowulf is expected to do, but there will probably be enough to, at least, double the GA ranks.

Alternatively - that "Hard Core" may stop being quite so hardcore when it finds that it's not The Mighty Solarian League anymore, but a 50 star system nation surrounded by 20 other such that clearly disagree, and are allied with the nasty neobarbs who upset the apple cart.

The range of possibilities are on a spectrum from get conquered and occupied through back down "for now" and get used to it over decades to shrug and change your minds when you see how things really are.

JeffEngel wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:There will be some systems that see the League as worth defending, but once those who are going to secede do so, the remnant of the League -- those systems that self-identify as "Solarian" -- will be small enough that the GA/SEM can occupy and police them as necessary.

Alternatively - that "Hard Core" may stop being quite so hardcore when it finds that it's not The Mighty Solarian League anymore, but a 50 star system nation surrounded by 20 other such that clearly disagree, and are allied with the nasty neobarbs who upset the apple cart.

There's going to be a few functional equivalents of "Byng's World" or "Crandall's Planet" that are going to make stupid, irrational decisions that the Solarian League is not dead and can be restored to it's rightful glory. The trick is going to be keeping those pockets of stupidity small and isolated -- or in extreme cases, sitting on them with a big club ready to whack them every time they mouth off, sort of like Masada.

SWM wrote:That's why the League is sending ships to Beowulf, and also why they have to be very careful how the spin this intervention. They can't make it too blatantly obvious that they are slapping Beowulf down. They have to cover themselves with at least a fig leaf by claiming they are preventing foreign interference in the vote. The rest of the League is watching. If it is too blatant, some of the League members will raise a cry. On the other hand, if they successfully spin it right, the subtext will still be obvious to any other members thinking of secession--We Will Crush You.

I suspect that the oopsie involving a "rogue" missile hitting Beowulf might be a tad hard to spin....

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:However, I thank Johnathan for making a very important point regarding my understanding and take on things. And that is the fact that the RMN initially underestimated their tech advantage. They had no way of knowing how outclassed the League would ultimately be when Alexander-Harrington&Co. were formulating their plan to splinter the League. Very profound point Johnathan-along with your others.

If they had been aware of their absolute tech advantage, would the plan have taken on a totally different shape?

Well maybe, maybe not.

Though even when I think we first heard about their contingency plans against the League (which was after opening the Talbott Quadrant, and after Oyster Bay) the main concern didn't seem to be that the SLN would roll over them. It rather seemed to be they'd be enough of a missile sponge that after rebuffing them the RMN might run short if they had to keep fighting a 2 front war against the SLN and Haven. (Plus of course having to divert their finite supply of hulls away from Haven right after they'd temporarily lost the ability to build more wouldn't have been great). So by that point ONI seemed to have known that in a straight-up head to head fight that the RMN should have been able to take anything the SLN was likely to be able to pull together. (And even then they underestimated the advantage by a significant amount - because the SLN's ships and doctrine lag behind what their basic military tech base could do. Haven did much better applying SL warship tech than the SLN did)

But even if they'd known exactly how badly a modern Apollo SD(P) could outclass anything the League built, I'm not sure it changes to broad strokes of the strategy all that much. The strategy was already built around the assumption that the RMN could win the tactical fights, but could never successfully occupy the League over the long term. I don't see that that's really changed just because the missiles are even more deadly than you thought.

The boots on the ground occupation and inspection is always a hard, man-power intensive, problem. So if you still need to avoid it (and I think they do) then you still need to do your best to encourage systems to make peace with you and stand aside from the fight. And to do that, you need to keep the moral high ground, and try to frame it as much as possible as a fight between an out-of-control Navy/bureaucracy against an alliance that would much rather have friendly relations with you. Taking your tactical advantages and using them for aggressive raiding doesn't fit into that narrative and risks ticking off the systems; potentially causing them to double down on supporting the League Navy.

cthia wrote:No, they weren't exactly worried about getting rolled over initially. What comes to mind is Caparelli's(or was it Hamish's) response to Elizabeth of what would happen if they hypered into the Home system, since the Forts were all on-line. That was humorous. Though I might add that the disclaimer was for what the League could soon throw at them.

I'll chew on your points for certain.

****** *

Aside:
Please forgive this slight diversion, but it is somewhat related. Probably due to the holes in my star maps, books I haven't yet read, I cannot figure out why League bureaucrats are referred to as Mandarins. And am I wrong for naturally getting an Imperialistic Chinese feel? Anyone care to shed light?

I'm not where I can get to it, so I can't check it out, but I remember wondering why the forts didn't squash Filareta's force when it hypered in. I immediately realized that it was because the plan was to allow a surrender.

So the question that remains is why Filareta didn't attack the forts? If you attack a system, do you not come prepared to engage the forts? Or is it, "if they don't shoot, you don't shoot?"

But if that is the case, then the forts can take advantage of your force later on in the engagement, having had to reverse course, at a time you haven't the ship strength or health to deal with them.

cthia wrote:I'm not where I can get to it, so I can't check it out, but I remember wondering why the forts didn't squash Filareta's force when it hypered in. I immediately realized that it was because the plan was to allow a surrender.

So the question that remains is why Filareta didn't attack the forts? If you attack a system, do you not come prepared to engage the forts? Or is it, "if they don't shoot, you don't shoot?"

But if that is the case, then the forts can take advantage of your force later on in the engagement, having had to reverse course, at a time you haven't the ship strength or health to deal with them.

Was Mycroft deployed throughout the Manticore home system by that point? If not then the forts were likely beyond FTL control range of Filareta's fleet (since they'd most likely just be clustered in 3 places - at the junction; near sphinx; and near manticore).

But even if they did have FTL control range they'd have had to make demonstration shots with their (relatively scarce) 4-drive system defense Apollo birds to prove they had the control reach to smash the SLN fleet.


But a ton of SD(P)s sitting across your path is a statement all on its own; even before any missiles start flying. So I'd guess it was a combination of going for obvious visible deterrence (in the hope of forcing a peaceful surrender) and an attempt to use less scarce resources if you did have to fight.

Mycroft isn't in service last we knew. The forts are directly Apollo capable.

kzt wrote:Mycroft isn't in service last we knew. The forts are directly Apollo capable.

Ok, which means they have FTL control for less than 8 lightminutes. (Honor's 'bluff' shot against Tourville during the BoM) [the two numbers I have handy for Apollo are: Lovat being in-range at 3+ LM and BoM being out of range at 8 LM; so the direct range should be somewhere between them]

So even if Fileretta was slightly inside the hyperlimit at the closest point of approach to Sphinx he'd still be well outside direct Apollo range of the orbital forts.
[Edit: Nope - I misread the chart in HoS. Sphinx is 0.8 LM inside the limit - not 8 LM. Yeah; if you drop in anywhere near the limit closest to Sphinx you'd be well within Apollo range of any orbital forts]

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:Mycroft isn't in service last we knew. The forts are directly Apollo capable.

Ok, which means they have FTL control for less than 8 lightminutes. (Honor's 'bluff' shot against Tourville during the BoM) [the two numbers I have handy for Apollo are: Lovat being in-range at 3+ LM and BoM being out of range at 8 LM; so the direct range should be somewhere between them]

So even if Fileretta was slightly inside the hyperlimit at the closest point of approach to Sphinx he'd still be well outside direct Apollo range of the orbital forts.

You're forgetting that the System Defense variant is a four-drive missile -- which should have a powered range 133% of a ship-borne three-drive Apollo.

Also, System defense missiles should be "bigger" than ship-borne missiles, so range should be 150-200% of a three drive Apollo. The FTL transceiver would have to have better range to manage powered range of the System Defense Variant, so the Hyper Limit (from Sphinx at the time of Filareta's Folly) would probably be in range or nearly in range.