A question about the destruction of Admiral Filareta

lyonheart wrote:Hi Don,

While it seems surprising not one of her staff saw anything, if they were all busy doing their jobs or trying, after the attack, they wouldn't be looking at the admiral in the first place.

It was her gun, but a nano-assassin is quite possible, though I've wondered about her chief of staff Pepe, but one reason the MAlign probably wanted her in command [with him as CoS] was that she/he had been prepared quite some time ago [ie infected], the trigger probably being the attack, possibly with some staffer's expected report pushing it.

The fact that RFC dwelt on those details so much indicates they're going to be important when whoever smokes out all the clues, for either a detective with a treecat companion [another internal series?] or Anton and possibly Victor, now that their spy days are effectively over, NTM with comments about all the data the GA is missing, and not following up.

L

The Alignment may well have figured that their connection to Winter Forage's timing and location was sufficiently buried, and that Crandall had little enough on them, that their risk of exposure just letting it play out naturally was less than their risk setting up another suicidal nano-assassin. That'd be reasonable even, especially considering how likely Crandall was to go up with her flagship like Byng.

I tend to share Torlek's analysis. It's a little odd that someone managed to frag her with her own weapon and it's remained secret among the flag bridge personnel, but as oddness goes, I'd rate that as less peculiar than suicide nano-orders that have her shot in the back of the head (it'd be tricky and just draw unwanted attention) or a second person under nanite masters who did it and did not kill themselves after or get set up to do so in the process.

Still and all, it's a weird occurrence and while it may not command attention from RMN fleet admirals, maybe the RMN's criminal investigators have been working on it and we'll hear a report when it gets to be relevant to viewpoint characters and the large plot.

n7axw wrote:

Torlek wrote:I do not believe that Admiral Crandal was assassinated by a nano-assassin. When the nano-assassin went after Admiral Harrington, he hosed the whole room. A single shoot in the head and than placing the gun in the victims hand sounds to complicated for such an assassin. A regular assassin also seams unlikely, because such an assassin would have to know that Admiral Crandals task force was sailing to their doom, survive the engagement and then end up as a POW that knows to much. Seams to be a bit risky for the MA or anyone motivated by money.

Suicide is a possibility but questionable, because of the unusual method. Nano induced suicide is also questionable, because the trigger conditions would have been very complicated. Also such a suicide, would require a sidearm, that is guaranteed to be in a certain position relative to Admiral Crandal (see Fleet Admiral Ramjapets suicide). Therefore the suicide is in danger of failing, if for example the cabinet, in which the sidearm is placed falls over during the battle or any number of other things, which could change the position of the sidearm.

I tend to think it was a fraging. Especially since nobody saw anything. They all have self induced amnesia and no Manty is motivated to expend the effort to convince them otherwise. Or the frager had an opportunity in which he was alone with Admiral Crandal and took it in the spur of the moment.

Hi Torlek,

Your guess is probably as good as mine. I will only remind you that anyone who witnessed Rajampet's assasination would have seen a suicide. So also that guy on Haven who flew into the cliff. There isn't just one pattern. Sometimes the patsy can be the victim.

Don

Rajampet hand a gun in his drawer, where it probably lay for decades. He was sitting in his office in his chair, which had an unchanged position and Rajampet in it because he just gotten a call. That office was not on a battle damaged ship.
We do not know whether Candral was in the habit of carrying his sidearm. If it would have been stored somewhere it might have moved during the battle. Also Candral position would have been unclear, when he was triggered. Or he might stumble over some debris on the way to the gun. If he was in the habit of carrying his gun, that day might just have been the one when he forgets it. After all it is his first real battle. He could have been nervous.

If I instead program him to suicide him using the pain meds in his suit I avoid all those risk factors, because not even Candral is arrogant enough to go into battle without a skinsuit.

Torlek wrote: Rajampet hand a gun in his drawer, where it probably lay for decades. He was sitting in his office in his chair, which had an unchanged position and Rajampet in it because he just gotten a call. That office was not on a battle damaged ship.
We do not know whether Candral was in the habit of carrying his sidearm. If it would have been stored somewhere it might have moved during the battle. Also Candral position would have been unclear, when he was triggered. Or he might stumble over some debris on the way to the gun. If he was in the habit of carrying his gun, that day might just have been the one when he forgets it. After all it is his first real battle. He could have been nervous.

If I instead program him to suicide him using the pain meds in his suit I avoid all those risk factors, because not even Candral is arrogant enough to go into battle without a skinsuit.

Torlek, excellent analysis with only one quibble--Fleet Admiral Sandra Crandall was a she, not a he.

That said, I don't think it was nanotech either, after your and other's comments, but it could have been someone besides the senior officers who had access to Crandall's locker/equipment and had been well paid (and maybe unknowingly infected by the same drugs that were used on the Mesan spy captured by Victor in Cauldron of Ghosts).

Still, all is speculation and kzt does have a point that RFC made a point to mention how she died but then left it totally unmentioned in the next several books. So either he has some bombshell planned....or we can speculate on it forever....

I suspect we are never going to hear anything more in the text about how Crandall died. I just don't see how they could learn anything useful from it, so it isn't relevant to the continuing story.

In the forums, I expect it to be a never-ending series of discussions.

Hijacked a point Hutch made elsewhere and posting it here "on-topic":

--snipped in--

Hutch wrote: ...Which does beg the question of what would happen if Filareta had defied his orders and gone for Gryphon...

Given that there were probably 75-100 Aggies and Nikes and the same number of Sag-A/B/C's there, along with thousands of Apollo and System defense Pods, the result might have been even bloodier (BC's and CA's are not going to let SD's, no matter how outclassed, get within their firing range; they would have launched from a minimum of 30M KM's with every missile they had).

And in re-reading ART, it crossed Filareta mind to go directly at Manticore (the planet), due to it's position in the system, but he rejected it as too risky in taking his fleet that far away from the hyper limit. If he had tried that, I am presuming that Admiral Higgins and say 48 SD's from Home Fleet, with ample pods, would have been waiting for him and the result would have been about the same.

Anyway you look at it, he was screwed.

I think this is a rather brilliant analysis. The only thing I'd add to it is that my guess is that everything would have happened more quickly to keep those 51,000 missiles from possibly heading for Gryphon, aka a quicker RMN ship translation out to bring in the Havenite formations, which would have had to microjump, but Tourville etc. would have still done to translate back in wherever they needed to to close the mousetrap. Harrington still would have used an Hermes buoy and Theisman, etc. to thoroughly intimidate Filereta into surrendering anyway.

Same thing for Manticore, but I haven't quite figured out the astrography for how the SLN could have gotten close enough without being fatally inside the hyper limit WAY before getting to strike range. IIRC Early on the GA's formations had him believing that was where Harrington was likely to be anyway.

Hutch wrote:
Torlek, excellent analysis with only one quibble--Fleet Admiral Sandra Crandall was a she, not a he.

That said, I don't think it was nanotech either, after your and other's comments, but it could have been someone besides the senior officers who had access to Crandall's locker/equipment and had been well paid (and maybe unknowingly infected by the same drugs that were used on the Mesan spy captured by Victor in Cauldron of Ghosts).

Still, all is speculation and kzt does have a point that RFC made a point to mention how she died but then left it totally unmentioned in the next several books. So either he has some bombshell planned....or we can speculate on it forever....

Okay egg on my face for that gender thing.
I don't believe in a paid Assassin. I imagine that guy/gal is looking for other employment options, after he read the instructions, which begin with: "So after the Manties have slaughtered the fleet you are part off ..."
I don't believe in a nano Assassin either. All the other Nano assassins we saw did something to kill everybody in the room, because they can not react to the actual situation but have to be preprogrammed. Carndal was killed by a single shot to the head.

SharkHunter wrote:Hijacked a point Hutch made elsewhere and posting it here "on-topic":

--snipped in--

Hutch wrote: ...Which does beg the question of what would happen if Filareta had defied his orders and gone for Gryphon...

Given that there were probably 75-100 Aggies and Nikes and the same number of Sag-A/B/C's there, along with thousands of Apollo and System defense Pods, the result might have been even bloodier (BC's and CA's are not going to let SD's, no matter how outclassed, get within their firing range; they would have launched from a minimum of 30M KM's with every missile they had).

And in re-reading ART, it crossed Filareta mind to go directly at Manticore (the planet), due to it's position in the system, but he rejected it as too risky in taking his fleet that far away from the hyper limit. If he had tried that, I am presuming that Admiral Higgins and say 48 SD's from Home Fleet, with ample pods, would have been waiting for him and the result would have been about the same.

Anyway you look at it, he was screwed.

SharkHunter wrote:I think this is a rather brilliant analysis.

Aw shucks, warn't nuthin.

The only thing I'd add to it is that my guess is that everything would have happened more quickly to keep those 51,000 missiles from possibly heading for Gryphon, aka a quicker RMN ship translation out to bring in the Havenite formations, which would have had to microjump, but Tourville etc. would have still done to translate back in wherever they needed to to close the mousetrap. Harrington still would have used an Hermes buoy and Theisman, etc. to thoroughly intimidate Filereta into surrendering anyway.

That's why I said that the BC's and CA's would not be messing around and letting Filareta fall into the trap designed by Grand Fleet. Figuring that Gryphon is a little farther away from the hyper limit (does anybody have that number?), I'd give him one warning and then launch, say 4,250 Apollo pods using the Therekov/Henke protocol from Monica/Spindle for control (I calculate 40 Sag-C's with 128 control links each for 2,120 pods and the remaining A's and B's make up the rest). Add in 10,500 System defense missiles (individually controlled by the BC's with an estimated 150 control links per BC) and you have an iniital launch of 44,500 attack missiles, with probably 38,000 (90 per SD or 380 for the first 100) and keep launching ever 20 seconds until they surrender or there are no more targets.

As for the Technodyne Missiles, I think even their range wouldn't come close to the Mark 23 or any System defense missile, and I would presume that the defenders would approach at an angle that precluded any misses hitting Gryphon.

As for getting rid of Filareta to cover their tracks, it would depend what the key was. If it was surrender, then if he wasn't killed in the battle, his command to surrender what was left of his fleet might have triggered the blowing up of the bridge. IMHO.

Same thing for Manticore, but I haven't quite figured out the astrography for how the SLN could have gotten close enough without being fatally inside the hyper limit WAY before getting to strike range. IIRC Early on the GA's formations had him believing that was where Harrington was likely to be anyway.

Which is why Filareta rejected it; apparently the geometry of the system made it feasible, but he would be so deep in the system that if he had to pull out it would be more difficult (I don't know, my last geometry lesson was 47 years ago, but that's what the MWW wrote).

Hutch wrote:That's why I said that the BC's and CA's would not be messing around and letting Filareta fall into the trap designed by Grand Fleet. Figuring that Gryphon is a little farther away from the hyper limit (does anybody have that number?), I'd give him one warning and then launch, say 4,250 Apollo pods using the Therekov/Henke protocol from Monica/Spindle for control (I calculate 40 Sag-C's with 128 control links each for 2,120 pods and the remaining A's and B's make up the rest). Add in 10,500 System defense missiles (individually controlled by the BC's with an estimated 150 control links per BC) and you have an iniital launch of 44,500 attack missiles, with probably 38,000 (90 per SD or 380 for the first 100) and keep launching ever 20 seconds until they surrender or there are no more targets.

<snip>

Hutch, your math is a little off - 40 Sag-Cs can control 5120 Apollo pods, or 40,960 attack/ECM birds per salvo all by their lonesomes. Throw in another 40 Nikes/ Reliants/BC(p)s, and you can control somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 Apollo Pods, per salvo, easy.

--snipping--

Theemile wrote:Hutch, your math is a little off - 40 Sag-Cs can control 5120 Apollo pods, or 40,960 attack/ECM birds per salvo all by their lonesomes. Throw in another 40 Nikes/ Reliants/BC(p)s, and you can control somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 Apollo Pods, per salvo, easy.

At which point I (who if I could join the RMN for real, would choose to be a Sag-C captain) just went Oh Geez!! in terms of any fleet engagements vs. the RMN, and yeah baby! as to why Theisman himself told Honor how badly screwed Haven was without an alliance.

Let's say that only the Sag-C salvo is launched, at 200 birds per targeted SL SD. That's still a mission kill on 200 ships. Followed by every other ship striking their wedges just about as quick as the remainder of Crandall's ships at Spindle.

Theemile wrote:

Hutch wrote:That's why I said that the BC's and CA's would not be messing around and letting Filareta fall into the trap designed by Grand Fleet. Figuring that Gryphon is a little farther away from the hyper limit (does anybody have that number?), I'd give him one warning and then launch, say 4,250 Apollo pods using the Therekov/Henke protocol from Monica/Spindle for control (I calculate 40 Sag-C's with 128 control links each for 2,120 pods and the remaining A's and B's make up the rest). Add in 10,500 System defense missiles (individually controlled by the BC's with an estimated 150 control links per BC) and you have an iniital launch of 44,500 attack missiles, with probably 38,000 (90 per SD or 380 for the first 100) and keep launching ever 20 seconds until they surrender or there are no more targets.

<snip>

Hutch, your math is a little off - 40 Sag-Cs can control 5120 Apollo pods, or 40,960 attack/ECM birds per salvo all by their lonesomes. Throw in another 40 Nikes/ Reliants/BC(p)s, and you can control somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 Apollo Pods, per salvo, easy.

Apparently multiplication using pen and paper are another ability that is fading fast in my dotage....

You are of course right, which only firms up the point that Filareta was toast wherever he went in the manticore system--just a decision if the toast was wheat, white, or rye.