GA PR campaign for splitting and collapsing the SL

Show up at Terra with the Beowulf SDF and friends. Have the Beowulf SDF, using tractored missile pods, blow up Hyperion. "act of self defense". Friends provide antimissile defenses to the Beowulf SDF.

Of course, if the hypothetical attack on Beowulf, if it happens, violates the Eridani Edict, then appearing at Sol with a list of the guilty, a supply of port-a-gallows, and the suggestion that the ISLN should do the arresting might spread confusion.

namelessfly wrote:The best, or at least most effective, PR gesture would be to respond to the impending attack on Beawulf by first destroying the SLN ships then making the short hop from the Beawulf terminus to Sol system with a squadron of SD(P)s to blow away all of the remaining SLN fleet (including reserves), SLN fleet bases, and shipyards known to build ships and parts for the SLN.

I suppose that the RMN should be gracious enough to grant the inhabitants of the various space platforms an opportunity to surrender and evacuate rather than just blowing them away from long range to kill millions of people as occurred at Oyster Bay.

The RMN might even take steps to ensure that no "fragments" from orbital facilities impact inhabited planets to kill millions.

phillies wrote:Show up at Terra with the Beowulf SDF and friends. Have the Beowulf SDF, using tractored missile pods, blow up Hyperion. "act of self defense". Friends provide antimissile defenses to the Beowulf SDF.

Of course, if the hypothetical attack on Beowulf, if it happens, violates the Eridani Edict, then appearing at Sol with a list of the guilty, a supply of port-a-gallows, and the suggestion that the ISLN should do the arresting might spread confusion.

namelessfly wrote:The best, or at least most effective, PR gesture would be to respond to the impending attack on Beawulf by first destroying the SLN ships then making the short hop from the Beawulf terminus to Sol system with a squadron of SD(P)s to blow away all of the remaining SLN fleet (including reserves), SLN fleet bases, and shipyards known to build ships and parts for the SLN.

I suppose that the RMN should be gracious enough to grant the inhabitants of the various space platforms an opportunity to surrender and evacuate rather than just blowing them away from long range to kill millions of people as occurred at Oyster Bay.

The RMN might even take steps to ensure that no "fragments" from orbital facilities impact inhabited planets to kill millions.

I've been lurking for quite a while but this thread got me thinking. I hope if anyone hits on what Mr. Weber wants to do he'll do it anyway and not try to force a change because someone "guessed right".

Anyway I think the best way to deal with everything here is very simple. Load up every surviving ship and crewman from BOM2 and Spindle and escort them with a Squadron of SD(P)'s, Carrier Support, and screening elements, right to the SOL system itself. Sit right on the hyper limit and invite the Solly News crews to examine the records contained on the ship and allow them to interview the crews before turning them and the ships loose to be repatriated in the SOL system. The Task Force should issue a warning to the Solarian League that any further attacks, including those against Beowulf, will be viewed as a full declaration of war against the Grand Alliance.

This is a win, win, win for the Grand Alliance.

1. You get the Solarian News agencies the facts and a scoop they can't pass up.
2. You don't have to deal with housing millions of POW's and finding spots for hundreds of obsolete ships.
3. The blow to the SLN's psyche will be tremendous. Even without saying it, its quite clear that "We gave you back your obsolete ships, play nice or the gloves come off" is the real message being sent.

Their infrastructure is obsolete. I would not destroy it and force them to rebuild new. Let them keep their crap and their old way of doing things. You want to keep them from modernizing as long as possible.

Just my two cents.

I agree.

Mars is probably the easiest extra terrestrial body in the solar system to terraform.

The current CO2 atmosphere needn't be removed or modified because it is so thin.

Mars is red because of the already oxidized iron in its soil.

Mars is on the outer edge of the habitability zone.

Mars can be given an atmosphere merely by processing a few dozen asteroids to extract Oxygen and Nitrogen from ammonia ice then dropping the material on the planet.

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:...Since I seriously doubt if Mars has been terraformed (why would anyone want to?) ...

According to "By The Book" by Charles E. Gannon in the anthology Beginnings implies that there is a small but significant permanent population on Mars at the beginning of the Diaspora. It likely has not diminished in the last 2,000 years, and probably grown.

By The Book
By Charles E. Gannon
in Beginnings
Edited By David Weber
wrote: ...So it was left—as so many dirty jobs were—to the Upsiders, that very small population that lived either on the moon, on Mars, or in the rotational habitats. It was they who maintained the satellites, mined the belt, or helped to build the slower-than-light starships that sent feckless, and usually obstreperous, bits of the human race off to colonize other star systems.

Jeroswen wrote:I've been lurking for quite a while but this thread got me thinking. I hope if anyone hits on what Mr. Weber wants to do he'll do it anyway and not try to force a change because someone "guessed right".

Anyway I think the best way to deal with everything here is very simple. Load up every surviving ship and crewman from BOM2 and Spindle and escort them with a Squadron of SD(P)'s, Carrier Support, and screening elements, right to the SOL system itself. Sit right on the hyper limit and invite the Solly News crews to examine the records contained on the ship and allow them to interview the crews before turning them and the ships loose to be repatriated in the SOL system. The Task Force should issue a warning to the Solarian League that any further attacks, including those against Beowulf, will be viewed as a full declaration of war against the Grand Alliance.

This is a win, win, win for the Grand Alliance.

1. You get the Solarian News agencies the facts and a scoop they can't pass up.
2. You don't have to deal with housing millions of POW's and finding spots for hundreds of obsolete ships.
3. The blow to the SLN's psyche will be tremendous. Even without saying it, its quite clear that "We gave you back your obsolete ships, play nice or the gloves come off" is the real message being sent.

Their infrastructure is obsolete. I would not destroy it and force them to rebuild new. Let them keep their crap and their old way of doing things. You want to keep them from modernizing as long as possible.

Just my two cents.

The Solarian News Agencies have already been given the facts.

JohnRoth wrote:Since I seriously doubt if Mars has been terraformed (why would anyone want to?) there's no reason to worry about flying fragments.

Eh, if any place in the Honorverse that didn't naturally have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere is terraformed, then Mars probably is. It took a long time before hyper drive was considered safe enough for colony ships and passenger traffic, and as nameless points out, it's the easiest place in the solar system to terraform.

It's the kind of thing no one in the Honorverse would do 'now', but when the alternative is a multi-century trip? Maybe not.

namelessfly wrote:Mars can be given an atmosphere merely by processing a few dozen asteroids to extract Oxygen and Nitrogen from ammonia ice then dropping the material on the planet.

In the absence of an iron core spinning inside a molten mantle to produce a magnetic field that resists solar wind, how long will that atmosphere last before it has to be replenished?

TheMonster wrote:

namelessfly wrote:Mars can be given an atmosphere merely by processing a few dozen asteroids to extract Oxygen and Nitrogen from ammonia ice then dropping the material on the planet.

In the absence of an iron core spinning inside a molten mantle to produce a magnetic field that resists solar wind, how long will that atmosphere last before it has to be replenished?

Probably tens of thousands of years. You could put a breathable atmosphere on the moon for thousands of years.

SWM wrote:

Jeroswen wrote:I've been lurking for quite a while but this thread got me thinking. I hope if anyone hits on what Mr. Weber wants to do he'll do it anyway and not try to force a change because someone "guessed right".

Anyway I think the best way to deal with everything here is very simple. Load up every surviving ship and crewman from BOM2 and Spindle and escort them with a Squadron of SD(P)'s, Carrier Support, and screening elements, right to the SOL system itself. Sit right on the hyper limit and invite the Solly News crews to examine the records contained on the ship and allow them to interview the crews before turning them and the ships loose to be repatriated in the SOL system. The Task Force should issue a warning to the Solarian League that any further attacks, including those against Beowulf, will be viewed as a full declaration of war against the Grand Alliance.

This is a win, win, win for the Grand Alliance.

1. You get the Solarian News agencies the facts and a scoop they can't pass up.
2. You don't have to deal with housing millions of POW's and finding spots for hundreds of obsolete ships.
3. The blow to the SLN's psyche will be tremendous. Even without saying it, its quite clear that "We gave you back your obsolete ships, play nice or the gloves come off" is the real message being sent.

Their infrastructure is obsolete. I would not destroy it and force them to rebuild new. Let them keep their crap and their old way of doing things. You want to keep them from modernizing as long as possible.

Just my two cents.

The Solarian News Agencies have already been given the facts.

Yes, you are correct. But I think a Grand Alliance Task Force dropping out of hyper with all those captured ships and crews would be a very big news story. Nothing like that has ever been done before. Plus it proves, no matter what the spin, that Manticore doesn't fear the League Navy. If the reporters were refused by the SLN to investigate the GA could still send the captured ships into the system, send a message for the League to stop hostilities, and then leave.

I don't see how the news faxes could resist investigating an event such as this unless the Solarian League specifically bans them from doing so.

As far as public relations goes however, Manticore and its alliance wins big. News faxes can spin whatever they want, but everyone on the street (and hundreds of thousands of repatriated sailors) know Manticore returned the ships and men when they didn't have to. Add to that a request for the League to cease and desist any further hostilities against Beowulf or Manticore and you quicken the collapse of the league even further.

The news services have already been investigating the story. And Manticore has repeatedly asked the League to stop its aggressions against Manticore.

I'm not saying that returning the sailors is a bad idea (I'm undecided on that), or that the gesture might not affect public opinion (I can't decide whether for good or ill). But as for the rest, I think we are way beyond the point where demands to the League or appeals to the newsies makes any difference. The League just attacked the Manticoran home system. They crossed the line, and there is no doubt in anyone who has heard the headline that this is war. The rest of it is just dressing.

The SL News Service is used to being spoon-fed the "truth" by the Department of Education and Information. They follow the official line. Bringing the prisoners and ships home would show how useless and outdated the GA considers the SLN to be. It would be a big blow that will play very well with the Verge and Shell and open a crack in the Core's rosy glasses of lies.

SWM wrote:

Jeroswen wrote:I've been lurking for quite a while but this thread got me thinking. I hope if anyone hits on what Mr. Weber wants to do he'll do it anyway and not try to force a change because someone "guessed right".

Anyway I think the best way to deal with everything here is very simple. Load up every surviving ship and crewman from BOM2 and Spindle and escort them with a Squadron of SD(P)'s, Carrier Support, and screening elements, right to the SOL system itself. Sit right on the hyper limit and invite the Solly News crews to examine the records contained on the ship and allow them to interview the crews before turning them and the ships loose to be repatriated in the SOL system. The Task Force should issue a warning to the Solarian League that any further attacks, including those against Beowulf, will be viewed as a full declaration of war against the Grand Alliance.

This is a win, win, win for the Grand Alliance.

1. You get the Solarian News agencies the facts and a scoop they can't pass up.
2. You don't have to deal with housing millions of POW's and finding spots for hundreds of obsolete ships.
3. The blow to the SLN's psyche will be tremendous. Even without saying it, its quite clear that "We gave you back your obsolete ships, play nice or the gloves come off" is the real message being sent.

Their infrastructure is obsolete. I would not destroy it and force them to rebuild new. Let them keep their crap and their old way of doing things. You want to keep them from modernizing as long as possible.

Just my two cents.

The Solarian News Agencies have already been given the facts.