Hi Don,
It's good to read your excellent posts again.
As RFC, pappilon and Brigade XO have pointed out, they really didn't get that much in the first place.
While Tamaguchi in SoV thinks about podnaughts in passing, even someone as good as he didn't begin to appreciate all the ramifications of what he did know or inferred, until the combined avalanche of all the 'unk-unks' finally got through his solarian arrogance.
Honor's major doctrinal base is that the SL isn't a single cohesive monolithic block [which is the general mandarin view], but lots of single star systems, each with plenty of reasons not to like the SL, which the SEM/GA can appeal to if not remedy.
In short the real war is for the hearts and minds of almost 2000 member star systems, which can be reached and perhaps affected far more quickly by news [NTM propaganda] reports than any fleet the GA can send however powerful, and winning their support or at least neutrality is the true key to victory, the sooner the better.
The news the GA is sharing with them is how the mandarins have been violating their own constitution, without any attempt to consider the various SEM mediation proposals, the repeated refusals to recall Filaretta, then blaming and scapegoating Beowulf for trying to prevent the stupid disaster.
Given Beowulf's far better reputation than the mandarins, which almost a quarter of the Executive Council supported, the non-core SL members may respect and admire Beowulf enough to agree with its attempts to prevent the war.
Then the quick and easy destruction of a quarter of the active Battle Fleet SD's [about 8 minutes at Spindle, maybe 5 Manticore] totally upsets all the strategic calculus of these star nations.
First: The basis of Solarian power for several centuries has been the absolute indisputable invincibility of the Solarian League Navy, that no one would ever be able to contest, thus likely to be an eternal verity that had to be faced and accepted however hated it was.
[yeah I know how thick it is]
Now, suddenly all that has entirely changed.
The SLN Battle Fleet is so incredibly obsolete it can't face these new 'Johnie come latelies' navies at all, ie 60-70 billion tons of very expensive SD's [~500 TRILLION M$] totally worthless, such that using FF BC's for commerce raiding is the only viable military action that Kingsford or the mandarins can see [granted they're being 'helped' by Gweon].
Instantly going from the only 800 kilo gorilla extant to mice or rats [comparing BC's to SD's] is quite a status change.
But the time taken by most SL members to recognize and internalize that fact slows the sea-change the GA needs to create; but when you're dealing with humans, expect more than the usual grit in the gears to slow down optimal results.
Second: The important thing about sending the footage to Sol, is that it means the GA has a minimum ten day lead from Beowulf [5 days each way to Terra] before the mandarin's lies can follow them, assuming it takes E&I only hours to falsify its version without leaving its fingerprints; ie about half the league saw the GA's version first coming from Beowulf and reinforced by ten days of followup reports, before calculating how quickly the GA messages reached the other wormholes, thus Erewhon's is only 3+ days behind and the RMN/GA controls 3-4 other wormholes within 60-100 LY of Sol, though they're more than ten days from Manticore apparently, IIRC.
Still the truth is going to beat the mandarins' lies to most of the league, even if only by hours [the contrast and comparison should make it obvious who's lying] particularly the shells and especially the verge, as the mandarins themselves admit their lies won't last long.
Third: This new 'Grand Alliance', dismissed as neobarbs for centuries, has humbled the mighty SLN, rendered the huge BF Fleet [and its vast Reserve Fleet] club irrelevant, which was the inevitable threat behind every SL/mandarin demand, and made it look absurdly easy.
Fourth: Remember the league membership is composed of sovereign states, who are independent star nations, upon whom the SL is largely distant and benign; it doesn't rule them, nor directly tax them, so very few 'solarian' citizens normally give much thought at all about the SL, which was the way it preferred things to be, in order to continue to feed on the verge and grow ever larger like a cancer in the dark.
Then publicly violating its constitution in multiple obvious ways, the SL/mandarins ignored the Executive Council, made undeclared war, made no declaration of war, attempted to coerce members to submit to its whims with the threat of deadly force against league civilian citizens, refuses to alert most members it is at war, or notify the EC of all of its actions in their name, then scapegoated Beowulf for trying to stop the SL mandarins/bureaucrats.
All of which it could also do to each solitary member, almost alone with far fewer friends than Beowulf with its galactic moral reputation, it opposition to the 'business as usual' SL corruption, its devotion to social liberty, not unlike the founders of the USA's opposition to government controls.
Rather than continue to be part of such a monster, Beowulf then announced it will leave the SL, after several centuries of being one of its major leaders, that many younger SL members tried to model themselves upon. Incredible!
For the leaders of an SL member responsible for billions of their system citizens, who do have to think about the SL and its appetites every day, this is a paradigm change in the life of your star system, of the SL itself, if it survives; and of humanity beyond the stars, ie everybody else outside it.
Which side would you choose?
If you're only following the reports of your EC delegation and embassy, that is not using your own other sources of information [spies, etc]; you knew about Byng, Crandall and Filaretta's future attack from the newsies and the public efforts by Beowulf and the SEM to stop it weeks before he reached Manticore, their prophecy he would be destroyed, it's quick fulfillment, and the bureaucratic mandarin response of punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty, before getting into the corruption that is the SL.
If you had reason to hate or object to the bureaucratic SL dictatorship, the corruption that is the SL, how quickly would you contact this potential savior, this 'Grand Alliance' that Beowulf appears headed to join?
If thanks to your very critically needed spies, you know how E&I lies and can't be trusted about anything, how corrupt the SL truly is, so the fact that Beowulf seems to be even considering joining the GA is a very good sign.
Personally, it'd take me only a day or two before at least sending observers to contact this GA ASAP to check them out if I already didn't know enough [just how many SL members have embassies on Manticore or Beowulf already?], via the nearest wormhole if possible.
Since Filaretta was destroyed in the middle of June and it only takes 5 days by db to reach Terra, and another ~18 days from there to reach members about 150 LY from Sol, ie most (those beyond that [up to ~200 LY from Sol] should probably have received notice via wormholes from Manticore by then if not SL newsies), every member in the SL should have learned of this political tsunami by the middle of July, though acting on it, ie getting the GA's attention could take another 3 weeks, or early August.
CoG and SoV ended in early October, and SoV concentrated on the verge around Talbot, so we haven't yet seen what happened on Beowulf, or elsewhere within and around the SL for 3-4 monthes, so that's why RFC is giving us that missing very very interesting data in UH.
Given that almost a quarter of the EC didn't take the mandarins' bribes or submit to their threats to vote against Beowulf, quite a bit of the membership seem willing to consider other options, and might be receptive to the GA.
Given Beowulf's penetration of the SL/N, I suspect the GA will send rescue TF's to some systems before some of them might have talked to the GA yet, to their very good fortune.
Given what just a pair or two of GA SDP's [from around 1200] could do to 8-10% (let alone 1.6-2.2%) of what's left of BF [especially with a missile collier along], mousetrapping the BF secession suspension fleets ought to be pretty easy and demonstrations of RHN MDM's and even Apollo might save a quarter million plus SLN sailors each time , as well as profoundly impressing all the observers, newsies and locals alike.
Such collapses of Solly power in the shells in some outer core systems, widely distributed
, could generate the avalanches of secessions the mandarins fear.
Of course, that's quite aside from whatever HA-H does about the BF reserve fleets in the 6-7 system anchorages etc.
So the war could easily end (or be effectively over) by March of 1923, or at least the first phase, the breakup of the SL.
Not an example of brevity.
L
[quote="n7axw"][quote="pappilon"]quote="n7axw"
[Snip]
A couple of things me a bit. Why send records of 2nd BOM to the League at all? I can understand the two Tuscany incidents. I can even stretch a bit to include Spindle. That was done in the hope that the League would get a clue and start treating Manticore's demands seriously. But the BOM? By that time it was completely clear that the League wasn't acting in good faith and had no intention of doing so.
Had I been calling the shots, I would simply sent a note home to the League telling the League that their fleet has been destroyed and that a state of war now exists between the GA and the League, along with a list of POWs and a statement that those POWs were being treated in according to the Deneb accords.-quote
Good question. it is not only a Political Statement, it is also a Public Relations Event. They sent copies of all their prevkious requests to recall Filareta with the dire warnings of what would happen to his fleet if they did carry out this illegal invasion. They sent (probably) The bridge recordings of Honor's ultimatum to Filarta, and the tactical recordings of the actual destruction of his fleet.
[quote]They certainly weren't entitled to any tactical info about how it was done or any further looks at Manty weapons systems.
Don [/quote]
They didn't really get any better look at Manty capabilities, they did get put on notice that the Republic of Haven had joined them in their war against the SL. "Maybe we are low on missiles, but the Second-Best-navy-in-the- 'Verse has plenty of missiles, SDs to fire them and an entire intact infrastructure to replace their losses.[/quote]
It's just that I think that the SLN should be getting their tactical info the hard way rather than the RMN assisting their Intel with blow by blow accounts.
As for PR, having entire fleets blown out of space should make the point without the blow by blow. That certainly isn't how the wars with Haven were fought. All the tactical recordings do is provide grist for the Solly propaganda mill to distort.
Don
-[/quote]
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