Concepts: Today's similarities and differences to the HV

tlb wrote:I think it was Theisman who pointed out that the LAC's were a lesser problem, it was the missile range that needed a solution. What if Haven had come up with the Cataphract at that point, since there is nothing special about its design?

And as White Haven pointed out in that communique, Haven couldn't do it in time to make a difference. Time was the issue. He hadn't counted on the High Ridge administration pausing the war for years.

In the end, Haven did come up with solutions, including MDMs, LACs, FTL comms, and SD(P)s.

tlb wrote:That depends on what he means by "recently". When were the SD's built in enough numbers to be significant? Was he old enough to remember when "destroyers and cruisers" were all that they had?

I'm assuming that even if Galton decided only recently to begin building anything bigger than a light-cruiser, it would have taken them several decades to get to where Galton was when Honor arrived. They had several dozen capital ships, in various classes, so this must have been an iterative approach. It's reasonable to assume that they had the same approach to the rest of the tech tree.

And it wouldn't have been recently. We're told that Galton was made much more militaristic when Darius was discovered and founded, so that should date back 150 years.

PS: I expect, because of where the Malign is located, that their attention has always been most focused on the Solarian League; that is the entity that they want to destroy. While they are aware of what is happening in the Haven Sector, they think that something similar to Oyster Bay will tip the scales enough to create their desired conclusion; because the League is huge and the others are not.

That's a reasonable assumption and similar to one I made above: he'd think that the RHN and RMN were about to destroy themselves, with the "MAN" picking up the pieces. But the Galton Navy at the state it was in 1924 wasn't sufficient to take on the SLN. The MAlign didn't think the RMN, which was bigger than the Galton Navy, could do that and at about this time too, otherwise they wouldn't have caused the war to start. We're still missing something new -- that he was aware of -- that would allow be a game-changer.

tlb wrote:PS: I expect, because of where the Malign is located, that their attention has always been most focused on the Solarian League; that is the entity that they want to destroy. While they are aware of what is happening in the Haven Sector, they think that something similar to Oyster Bay will tip the scales enough to create their desired conclusion; because the League is huge and the others are not.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's a reasonable assumption and similar to one I made above: he'd think that the RHN and RMN were about to destroy themselves, with the "MAN" picking up the pieces. But the Galton Navy at the state it was in 1924 wasn't sufficient to take on the SLN. The MAlign didn't think the RMN, which was bigger than the Galton Navy, could do that and at about this time too, otherwise they wouldn't have caused the war to start. We're still missing something new -- that he was aware of -- that would allow be a game-changer.

I agree that the League Navy, as a whole, was more than Galton could take; but armed with weapons that only later would be given to the SLN, a Galton ship could defeat a similar League ship. Maddock actually proved that by only narrowly losing to Rozsak, who was armed with improved weapons from Erewhon. So I believe Maddock is comparing to the League, but only on a ship to ship basis; justified because the MAN is not going to directly fight the SLN.