The SLN commerce raiding strategy WILL work.

pldew wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:
The Mandarins are not going to understand until it is way late in the game that their best option -for the League at any rate though not for themselves- is NOT to start sending more SLN ships to hit SEM/GA targets.

Yes, though I think the Mandarins will understand quickly. Because the issue they are facing is maintaining the existence of the League itself. They see that their fleet is not going to protect them, and some are starting to think the fifth column claims Manticore is making about Mesa may have some validity after all. I would guess they will be pulling their resources inward to hold what they have, for as long as they can. I could almost see the GA preferring to prop up the League so they can concentrate on the Alignment. Not likely, but maybe not insane.

The Mandarins are in touch with reality? Really? I wish. But no evidence they are remotely capable of that so far.

They seem to be focused on CYOA big time and on saving the League only so far as that helps with the CYOA project. In a sort of nebulous faux sentimental way they may have a bit of nostalgia on the subject but ... just no evidence of the sort of Cincinnatus guts and honor it would take to even attempt to fix the mess they have created and nourished with their dumbfanny arrogance and sociopathic mindsets.

Northstar wrote:The Mandarins are in touch with reality? Really? I wish. But no evidence they are remotely capable of that so far.

They seem to be focused on CYOA big time and on saving the League only so far as that helps with the CYOA project. In a sort of nebulous faux sentimental way they may have a bit of nostalgia on the subject but ... just no evidence of the sort of Cincinnatus guts and honor it would take to even attempt to fix the mess they have created and nourished with their dumbfanny arrogance and sociopathic mindsets.

I don't think this is fair to them. They are specialized bureaucrats, which means each of them has an automatically narrow, specialized focus which makes them both (1) bad at looking at and (2) unlikely to pay attention to anything outside their own immediate bureaucratic concerns. Moreover, their arrogance is well founded - none of them has any reason to think that Manticore has the combat capability to actually pose a military threat to a Star Nation that is literally a thousand times its size.

This is the product of their inheritance of about four centuries of "it's just the way things are done" bureaucratic corruption. Even if any of them had wanted to reform the system, they never had the impetus (or political authority) to try. And now that Manticore has provided the impetus, their principal concern is (understandably) trying to keep the whole thing together - which, conveniently, requires them to play CYOA since if they fail to do that, everyone gets to see the Emperor without his clothes and the whole thing flies apart. Moreover, they still don't have the political authority to initiate any kind of constitutional reforms.

The long term problem was structural, and can't be pinned on any one of the Mandarins. Replace them with other people and you're not likely to get any different results.

The short term problem, though, was Rajampet. Rajampet was the one whose job it was to protect the League militarily and stay up to date on the military technology of the day. Not only did Rajampet fail to do that, he prevented the Mandarins from getting the information they would have needed to make smart decisions by not sharing things like Crandall and Filareta's forward deployments.

Now, even Rajampet is partially forgivable, because thinking that Manticore might actually be willing and able to take on the League in a large-scale military confrontation was crazy was completely reasonable (even if its ability to cripple the league's economy was perfectly predictable, at least in the short term). He's mostly unforgivable, though, since he intentionally threw all the gasoline to start the fire that put Manticore and the League at each others' throats.

pldew wrote:Yes, though I think the Mandarins will understand quickly. Because the issue they are facing is maintaining the existence of the League itself. They see that their fleet is not going to protect them, and some are starting to think the fifth column claims Manticore is making about Mesa may have some validity after all. I would guess they will be pulling their resources inward to hold what they have, for as long as they can. I could almost see the GA preferring to prop up the League so they can concentrate on the Alignment. Not likely, but maybe not insane.

I think the Mandarins get it, but the Mandarins have no options left. They can't stop invasions, and they can't mount any of their own, and they're not going to get Manticore to offer them any terms. The best option, then, is to whip up as much anti-Manticoran sentiment as quickly as possible and convince as many people that it is worth a decade (or two or three) of tremendous hardship to beat down the Manticorans and never let anything like this ever happen again. If they can convince the League to take that pain, then the Solarian League not only can win, but will win, for exactly the reasons that Honor pointed out: the Manticorans can kill a hundred SDs every Tuesday and never beat the league in a war.

The problem, though, is the League is so corrupt that convincing people that it's worth taking that pain to sustain it isn't likely to happen, particularly when news about the Protectorates starts getting back home. Plus "sustaining hardship" is in part going to mean Constitutional reforms that literally any member system can veto and all of them will hate.

No, the League is toast.

As for Manticore propping the League up, not a chance. There's only one thing that's a bigger threat to the long-term independence of Manticore than Mesa, and that's the Solarian League. This means Mesa and Manticore have overlapping interests, at least until the League is dead.

Manticore's strategy needs to be Meyers writ large: break up the league and make the new rump-states into friends. This can potentially lead to problems, depending on which strategy the Renaissance Factor decides to take re: its relationship to Manticore. Manticore doesn't know that, of course... if Manticore can incentivize enough rump states to stay small and friendly to Manticore, it has achieved its mission objectives.

Crown Loyalist wrote:I don't think this is fair to them. They are specialized bureaucrats, which means each of them has an automatically narrow, specialized focus which makes them both (1) bad at looking at and (2) unlikely to pay attention to anything outside their own immediate bureaucratic concerns. Moreover, their arrogance is well founded - none of them has any reason to think that Manticore has the combat capability to actually pose a military threat to a Star Nation that is literally a thousand times its size.

One suspect that they might be rethinking this assumption...

kzt wrote:

Crown Loyalist wrote:I don't think this is fair to them. They are specialized bureaucrats, which means each of them has an automatically narrow, specialized focus which makes them both (1) bad at looking at and (2) unlikely to pay attention to anything outside their own immediate bureaucratic concerns. Moreover, their arrogance is well founded - none of them has any reason to think that Manticore has the combat capability to actually pose a military threat to a Star Nation that is literally a thousand times its size.

One suspect that they might be rethinking this assumption...

By the time they stopped listening to Rajampet, whose job it was to tell them when that assumption was a bad one to make, it was already too late and the damage was done.

(That post really should have been written in the past tense, not sure why I wrote it in present tense.)

Crown Loyalist wrote:

Northstar wrote:The Mandarins are in touch with reality? Really? I wish. But no evidence they are remotely capable of that so far.

They seem to be focused on CYOA big time and on saving the League only so far as that helps with the CYOA project. In a sort of nebulous faux sentimental way they may have a bit of nostalgia on the subject but ... just no evidence of the sort of Cincinnatus guts and honor it would take to even attempt to fix the mess they have created and nourished with their dumbfanny arrogance and sociopathic mindsets.

I don't think this is fair to them. They are specialized bureaucrats, which means each of them has an automatically narrow, specialized focus which makes them both (1) bad at looking at and (2) unlikely to pay attention to anything outside their own immediate bureaucratic concerns. Moreover, their arrogance is well founded - none of them has any reason to think that Manticore has the combat capability to actually pose a military threat to a Star Nation that is literally a thousand times its size.

This is the product of their inheritance of about four centuries of "it's just the way things are done" bureaucratic corruption. Even if any of them had wanted to reform the system, they never had the impetus (or political authority) to try, and now that Manticore has provided the impetus, their principal concern is (understandably) trying to keep the whole thing together - which, conveniently, requires them to play CYOA since if they fail to do that, everyone gets to see the Emperor without his clothes and the whole thing flies apart. Moreover, they still don't have the political authority to initiate any kind of constitutional reforms.

The long term problem was structural, and can't be pinned on any one of the Mandarins. Replace them with other people and you're not likely to get any different results.

The short term problem, though, was Rajampet. Rajampet was the one whose job it was to protect the League militarily and stay up to date on the military technology of the day. Not only did Rajampet fail to do that, he prevented the Mandarins from getting the information they would have needed to make smart decisions by not sharing things like Crandall and Filareta's forward deployments.

Now, even Rajampet is partially forgivable, because thinking that Manticore might actually be willing and able to take on the League in a large-scale military confrontation was crazy was completely reasonable (even if its ability to cripple the league's economy was perfectly predictable, at least in the short term). He's mostly unforgivable, though, since he intentionally threw all the gasoline to start the fire that put Manticore and the League at each others' throats.

Rajampet was a paid traitor in employ of MA. Read that scene where Rajampet's suicide is forced by MA nanotech. He admits in his self reflection that he is motivated by money and hatred of of Manticore. Mandrains diasterous decisions were in part because of Rajampet withholdin crucial information and his bad advice.

Don

n7axw wrote:
Rajampet was a paid traitor in employ of MA. Read that scene where Rajampet's suicide is forced by MA nanotech. He admits in his self reflection that he is motivated by money and hatred of of Manticore. Mandrains diasterous decisions were in part because of Rajampet withholdin crucial information and his bad advice.

Don

Oh, yeah I know, which is why Rajampet threw all that gasoline. He had no idea he was setting in motion the League's death, though, because he had no idea that Manticore could and would take his navy and beat it like a drum (which means he was both incompetent and treasonous; his incompetence is forgivable and even understandable, his treason is not).

Rajampet is one of the most purely immoral characters in the series, up there with the Youngs and Giancola.

Crown Loyalist wrote:

No, the League is toast.

As for Manticore propping the League up, not a chance. There's only one thing that's a bigger threat to the long-term independence of Manticore than Mesa, and that's the Solarian League. This means Mesa and Manticore have overlapping interests, at least until the League is dead.

True, but in the short term, the League isn't much of a threat. Or at least, it is containable with known resources of the GA. The Alignment and it's strategic implications are new elements that they haven't had plans to deal with. While the GA only knows bits about the Alignment, they do know they like chaos and war as a background, such as the death throes of the League. I think GA short term strategic thinking has a definite chance of changing that way.

pldew wrote:

Crown Loyalist wrote:

No, the League is toast.

As for Manticore propping the League up, not a chance. There's only one thing that's a bigger threat to the long-term independence of Manticore than Mesa, and that's the Solarian League. This means Mesa and Manticore have overlapping interests, at least until the League is dead.

True, but in the short term, the League isn't much of a threat. Or at least, it is containable with known resources of the GA. The Alignment and it's strategic implications are new elements that they haven't had plans to deal with. While the GA only knows bits about the Alignment, they do know they like chaos and war as a background, such as the death throes of the League. I think GA short term strategic thinking has a definite chance of changing that way.

I just don't see it. Propping the League up at this point means basically accepting its continuing existence, because if the League can survive the next, say, two T-years intact (with all the changes and adaptations that will be required to make that survival possible), there's a very good chance the League survives much longer than that. And, as I say, the only thing more dangerous long-term to Manticore than Mesa is a united Solarian League.

From a strategic vantage point, Manticore doesn't know anything of real value about Mesa's long term plans. Manticore knows that the League is being manipulated into war with them, but Manticore doesn't have a real handle on the idea that Mesa's endgame is the death of the League and its controlled rebirth. Moreover, even if Manticore did know Mesa's endgame, the best way to prevent Mesa's victory isn't to prevent the death of the League, it's to provide an alternative anchor to the Renaissance Factor, so that the League's rebirth is in Manticore's preferred image, rather than Mesa's.

Crown Loyalist wrote:
From a strategic vantage point, Manticore doesn't know anything of real value about Mesa's long term plans.

That's exactly why I think Manticoran strategic thinking could take a radical turn in the very near future. The need to learn more about the Alignment, and do anything about it, may divert too many resources to allow the GA to decisively deal with the League right now.

Crown Loyalist, I feel like we are both looking at the options in a similar way, with you coming to a "League-first", and myself to an "Alignment-first" approach. I feel confident it is the shape of the debate that will have to occur. No clue which one of us is right, if one of us is.