Attacking Darius:

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I always expected those missiles to eventually become tube launched by the LDs.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now they are going to be tube launched by the LDs - but, again, we're told that's because the LDs are being built with massive oversized tubes able to handle the current spider torps.

As Jonathan_S said: we all expect that, because the author said so when the LD's, the graser torpedoes and the Shark-class ships were first introduced.

PS: As to "Destroy a planet and orphan its navy", that is only true for a one planet polity (provided that includes destroying all the orbitals also). But Manticore, for example, is about 14 planets with the inclusion of the Talbott Quarter and many more with Silesia.

Even Worse - Manticore has at least 57 planets now.

"Old" SKM
6 - Manticore, Gryphon, Sphinx, Basilisk, San Martin, Lynx

Talbott Quadrant
16 planets

Silesia - "Eastern 1/2"
35 planets

First War captures
~20 planets whose populations have not declared their futures.

Theemile wrote:Even Worse - Manticore has at least 57 planets now.

"Old" SKM
6 - Manticore, Gryphon, Sphinx, Basilisk, San Martin, Lynx

Talbott Quadrant
16 planets

Silesia - "Eastern 1/2"
35 planets

First War captures
~20 planets whose populations have not declared their futures.

Lynx is part of the Talbott Cluster, the star nearest to the Lynx terminal is not part of an inhabited system. From War of Honor:

Chapter 34 wrote:"Not really, Ma'am. After all, it's a long way from home. But the Lynx System was settled about two hundred T-years ago. It's part of the Talbott Cluster."

"Talbott?" This time Zachary recognized the name, and her eyes narrowed as she considered the implications of that recognition.

The Talbott Cluster was the thoroughly inaccurate name assigned to one of several regions, most of them rather sparsely settled, just beyond the frontiers of the Solarian League.

tlb wrote:Lynx is part of the Talbott Cluster, the star nearest to the Lynx terminal is not part of an inhabited system. From War of Honor:

Chapter 34 wrote:"Not really, Ma'am. After all, it's a long way from home. But the Lynx System was settled about two hundred T-years ago. It's part of the Talbott Cluster."

"Talbott?" This time Zachary recognized the name, and her eyes narrowed as she considered the implications of that recognition.

The Talbott Cluster was the thoroughly inaccurate name assigned to one of several regions, most of them rather sparsely settled, just beyond the frontiers of the Solarian League.

Astrographically, sure. But not legally/governmentally anymore.

Lynx (like Saint Martin) directly joined Manticore, Sphynx, and Gryphon as part of the Star Kingdom of Manticore - and therefore wasn't part of the negotiations at Split that somewhat later led most of the other systems of the Talbott Cluster joining the broader Star Empire of Manticore as its Talbott Quadrant.

tlb wrote:Lynx is part of the Talbott Cluster, the star nearest to the Lynx terminal is not part of an inhabited system. From War of Honor:

Chapter 34 wrote:"Not really, Ma'am. After all, it's a long way from home. But the Lynx System was settled about two hundred T-years ago. It's part of the Talbott Cluster."

"Talbott?" This time Zachary recognized the name, and her eyes narrowed as she considered the implications of that recognition.

The Talbott Cluster was the thoroughly inaccurate name assigned to one of several regions, most of them rather sparsely settled, just beyond the frontiers of the Solarian League.

Jonathan_S wrote:Astrographically, sure. But not legally/governmentally anymore.

Lynx (like Saint Martin) directly joined Manticore, Sphynx, and Gryphon as part of the Star Kingdom of Manticore - and therefore wasn't part of the negotiations at Split that somewhat later led most of the other systems of the Talbott Cluster joining the broader Star Empire of Manticore as its Talbott Quadrant.

Very interesting, so sorry; I did not remember that (obviously), but it does make sense.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Astrographically, sure. But not legally/governmentally anymore.

Lynx (like Saint Martin) directly joined Manticore, Sphynx, and Gryphon as part of the Star Kingdom of Manticore - and therefore wasn't part of the negotiations at Split that somewhat later led most of the other systems of the Talbott Cluster joining the broader Star Empire of Manticore as its Talbott Quadrant.

Very interesting, so sorry; I did not remember that (obviously).

If memory serves, the request for Lynx to join the Star Kingdom was made by the Lynx planetary assembly within a day or 2 of the exploration ship Harvest Joy's stop at Lynx to orient itself after a brief reconnoiter at the Lynx terminus and it's companion star, and then returned to Manticore on the Harvest Joy, and ratified long before contact with the rest of the quadrant happened.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:I always expected those missiles to eventually become tube launched by the LDs.

Jonathan_S wrote:Now they are going to be tube launched by the LDs - but, again, we're told that's because the LDs are being built with massive oversized tubes able to handle the current spider torps.

snip

PS: As to "Destroy a planet and orphan its navy", that is only true for a one planet polity (provided that includes destroying all the orbitals also). But Manticore, for example, is about 14 planets with the inclusion of the Talbott Quarter and many more with Silesia.

Theemile wrote:Even Worse - Manticore has at least 57 planets now.

"Old" SKM
6 - Manticore, Gryphon, Sphinx, Basilisk, San Martin, Lynx

Talbott Quadrant
16 planets

Silesia - "Eastern 1/2"
35 planets

First War captures
~20 planets whose populations have not declared their futures.

This is true, but I anticipated that response. How many of those planets are industrially effective? And how many can become so in a reasonable amount of time? Which bases are the most important? Which manufacturing facilities are the most important?

It is my experience that any navy scouts their enemy and determines their areas of strength AND weakness. Haven and Manticore wrote the book on that strategy and Honor sharpened her teeth on the strategy with Eighth Fleet.

Also recall my thread What is the |Captured Enemy Systems|. Strategically, some systems are just not worth the effort.

Beowulf's industrial capacity will be destroyed. Bolthole will be destroyed. Both are At All Costs targets. There are always important bridges to destroy in all wars. These systems are the GA's bridges to recovery. They will be on the LDs hit list for certain. Isn't this what the Yawata Strike was about? The MA did their due diligence.

But I digress. There are lots of planets comprising each system, but many of them will be of little strategic value in the immediate aftermath of an attack of epic proportions that will place Oyster Bay in its proper perspective of simply being an afterthought.

Bringing the GA to a crawl industrially might just destroy the GA. Planets in each individual system will be clamoring for protection from the fear instilled by The Attack of the Killer Spiders.

Each navy will have to pull back to protect their Queen, or President, and citizens, etc.

I know none of you think it is possible for the MA to complete all LDs. But if they can manufacture an entire system as fast as Galton, then 100 LDs should be child's play. Anyway, for sake of argument, let's assume the worst-case scenario. All 100 LDs are completed.

1. How many g-torps does it take to mission kill an SD?

2. How many LDs does it take to mission kill a system for the immediate future per the perils of war?

These are all rhetorical questions that the MA will surely answer.

Thinksmarkedly wrote:Quite. And I think the MAN knows this too. Darius only defence so far is that it can't be found, even if the Felix Junction is blockaded. So investing in fixed and mobile defences to defend against hundreds of SD(P)s may not be in their priority list either.

penny wrote:That doesn't make any sense to me. No navy fails to protect their home. And there is no way an arrogant entity like the MA will depend on lying to their enemies in the end.

I'm not saying "no defence." But there's a cost/benefit ratio and a cost of opportunity. I am saying that the MAN and Onion leadership may find that investing in a fixed defence for your home system that is capable of withstand an attack by one thousand SD(P)s, like Grayson and Manticore have, is unacceptably high. They can't win against a force that can throw that many capital ships, then rearm and come back again.

I mean, maybe they can defend against that. If they can, at a reasonable cost, then sure, do it. Then Darius is impregnable, whether it is found or not.

But I don't think they can. I don't think they can create a defence that can withstand the Grand Fleet that took out Galton, at least not twice. They could defend against it once, but that would leave the system in tatters, with its industrial capability destroyed. In particular, any yards it would need to repair the ships that participated in that defence and the nodes to produce replacement missiles and torpedoes.

So what should they invest on? A normal system would invest in defences against one of its neighbours turning warlord and attacking before they can get their allies to come help. That option is not applicable for Darius, so they should invest against a random accidental discovery and to buy time for the Onion to escape if the Grand Fleet does come calling.

Anything more than that, even to hold the Grand Fleet off for a full week, may be a waste of investment. They could invest instead on units that go far afield to achieve their objectives and on Darius 2.0.

penny wrote:I know none of you think it is possible for the MA to complete all LDs. But if they can manufacture an entire system as fast as Galton, then 100 LDs should be child's play. Anyway, for sake of argument, let's assume the worst-case scenario. All 100 LDs are completed.

I do not recall anyone ever saying that it is impossible for the LD fleet to be completed. Instead what has been said is that it all depends on how much time the author allows Darius before discovery.

As to the question of destroyed planets, we will just have to wait and see whether the author will write such a scenario.

penny wrote:Beowulf's industrial capacity will be destroyed. Bolthole will be destroyed. Both are At All Costs targets. There are always important bridges to destroy in all wars. These systems are the GA's bridges to recovery. They will be on the LDs hit list for certain. Isn't this what the Yawata Strike was about? The MA did their due diligence.

You have to consider the GA as a whole, which increases the number of targets a lot. The MAlign needs to attack and destroy at least the industrial components in:

1. Manticore binary system (both components)
2. Yeltsin's Star system (Grayson)
3. Haven system
4. Refuge system (Bolthole)
5. New Berlin system (Andermani capital system)
6. Sigma Draconis system (Beowulf)

I also expect each of the multi-system polities (SEM, Andermani, Haven) to have one other location with significant military-industrial presence. We know that Haven had 2 or 3 more yards in addition to the Haven and Bolthole, because they were being used in the Second War to hide the construction of Haven's pre-pod SDs. We don't know if they were modernised, turned civilian, or deactivated. We also know that the Andermani were refitting their SDs at a location that Haven couldn't find during that war, so there's at least one more major, hidden yard somewhere.

If you take out only one or two of the list above, the rest will take up capacity. In a pinch, the GA can also shift some of their demands to close allies, like Erewhon and the Carlucci Industries who were building ships for the ESN and for Maya. There also yards in Silesia, though those come in third after the Erewhon ones, at least in the near future. There may be also high tech civilian yards in Hypatia that could be converted to military use faster than the Silesian ones.

Kingsford would be happy to repair all those ships, for free, so long as the technicians could keep their notes.

penny wrote:I know none of you think it is possible for the MA to complete all LDs. But if they can manufacture an entire system as fast as Galton, then 100 LDs should be child's play. Anyway, for sake of argument, let's assume the worst-case scenario. All 100 LDs are completed.

tlb wrote:I do not recall anyone ever saying that it is impossible for the LD fleet to be completed. Instead what has been said is that it all depends on how much time the author allows Darius before discovery.

Indeed. And I don't think he will. I still think the time jump will be a decade on the outside, which will not allow the MAN to build more than 10 LDs (3 years per ship, 3 ships at a time).

Galton didn't build fast. It took them 200 T-years to reach the point they were at when they got discovered. They had a handful of SD(P)s out of their 48 wallers, 9 T-years after the Medusas got unveiled during Operation Buttercup. I don't recall modern LACs and CLACs at all.

I mean, maybe that is fast. They were the only entity in the entire Known Galaxy that had pod-launching SDs at all, who weren't either the GA or got direct help from the GA (Erewhon).

My point is that Galton didn't come up with its defences magically. There's no off-the-shelf, turn-key solution to be had. It took them years to get where they were. And I don't expect Darius to even be as fast as Galton, because they don't have the militaristic bent or the clearly-enslaved population. To make matters worse, they're investing in new technologies, fresh off the prototype stage, meaning they take longer to build, iron the kinks out, train with, create doctrines for.

If you do allow a couple of decades for all of this to mature, then the same decades apply to the GA and then all bets are off. It could be that their military readiness drops to zero, but it could also be that they have found a silver bullet (in both senses). Which is why I don't think it will happen in the books, because it's then not a direct continuation of where we are. Might as well invest time in the Edward Saganami trilogy.

As to the question of destroyed planets, we will just have to wait and see whether the author will write such a scenario.

We know he won't.