Beating up Frontier Fleet, mercilessly

JohnRoth wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:If I were the Mayan guys, I wouldn't want to be an early defector. Wait and see if somebody else will volunteer to go first, with the consequent attention from Frontier Fleet. As long as they aren't being ordered to do something they can't afford to do, like attack a GA system, they can wait, hoping to secede in the middle of the pack.

I seem to remember a conversation where Albrecht Detewiller expects Maya to kick off the wave of secessions. That doesn't mean it's going to happen that way, but I wouldn't count on him being wrong.

Barregos could send a very, very quiet word through Erewhon that a sufficient GA force arriving in Maya could count on a bloodless "surrender", followed by reorganization of Maya as an independent state, with Roszak's forces "maintaining their role as peace-keeping police forces locally". In effect, the defection gets a nice-sized figleaf as a response to Manticoran force majeure, and Maya-loyal Frontier Fleet (maybe that should have scare quotes too) units become the local navy without having to go through any tedious period as POW's. It's just a waste of time for all concerned.

JeffEngel wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:If I were the Mayan guys, I wouldn't want to be an early defector. Wait and see if somebody else will volunteer to go first, with the consequent attention from Frontier Fleet. As long as they aren't being ordered to do something they can't afford to do, like attack a GA system, they can wait, hoping to secede in the middle of the pack.

JohnRoth wrote:I seem to remember a conversation where Albrecht Detewiller expects Maya to kick off the wave of secessions. That doesn't mean it's going to happen that way, but I wouldn't count on him being wrong.

Barregos could send a very, very quiet word through Erewhon that a sufficient GA force arriving in Maya could count on a bloodless "surrender", followed by reorganization of Maya as an independent state, with Roszak's forces "maintaining their role as peace-keeping police forces locally". In effect, the defection gets a nice-sized figleaf as a response to Manticoran force majeure, and Maya-loyal Frontier Fleet (maybe that should have scare quotes too) units become the local navy without having to go through any tedious period as POW's. It's just a waste of time for all concerned.

A surrender and re-org probably won't need to happen, though logically I do see your point. [It is a bigger giveaway about prior allegiance(s) if Manticore never moves towards Maya at all].

If the (plot) cards fall right, however, Barregos could simply declare his systems as non-combatants that refuse to follow the Mandarin's illegal orders and then be "broadcasting" that to any ships coming "in system" and then have his ship posture OR fight according to an arriving set of ships' responses to that broadcast.

Obviously the GA is going to respect Maya's status, creating a de facto "smaller successor state" under Barregos and Rozak, and for anyone else? well, the bull has horns.

If the (plot) cards fall right, however, Barregos could simply declare his systems as non-combatants that refuse to follow the Mandarin's illegal orders and then be "broadcasting" that to any ships coming "in system" and then have his ship posture OR fight according to an arriving set of ships' responses to that broadcast.

Obviously the GA is going to respect Maya's status, creating a de facto "smaller successor state" under Barregos and Rozak, and for anyone else? well, the bull has horns.

The problem with the view of these nice and successful Maya succession scenarios you have described is that in Torch of Freedom (i think) we have a few excepts between story sections of a future Honerverse "in-universe" book called 'Origins of the Maya Crisis' supposedly describing what happened there and the events leading up to its succession from the League.

Given the numerous other monumental historic events playing out all around the galaxy, i think the implications are that The Sepoy Option and Barregos actions are certainly going to make some serious ripples somehow and somewhere. Given that we have also have going on:

1) The fallout of Second Manticore
2) The confrontation between Tsang, and Manticore/Beowulf at the Junction
3) Beowulfs isolation and declaration of Succession from the League
4) The first "spontaneous" uprisings in the Shell and Verge
5) Rampajets Suicide
6) The Mass Bombings, Seccie Uprising's, and Occupation of Mesa
7) The Grand Alliance's first true military offensives
8) The preparations for the launch of the Renaissance Factor

This makes the fact that a single comparatively wealthy and successful Frontier Sector suddenly decides to go independent seem fairly small fry. Given that "Crisis" will eventually (in a century or so) be used to describe it, that implies it set off or was involved in some fairly major historic incidents. These have been a variety of things so ill list some I have thought up:

A) Maya inspired other or neighboring star systems to also make a break from the League, acting as the first pebble in a landslide.
B) A massive battle took place at some point, either to reclaim the sector or for them to repel/survive reoccupation.
C) The Sepoy Option somehow failed and everyone at last saw the depths BF/FF were willing to go.
D) Maya became its own independent and successful kingdom/republic and lead to future breakouts from an already shaken and broken League.
E) Education and Information decides its easier to throw blame locally and does to Maya what it is currently doing the Beowulf, painting an otherwise bloodless coup as a massive black treachery.
F) The events in Maya are otherwise fairly mild but coincides with other more serious events and so gets tarred with the same brush.

Valen123456 wrote:Given the numerous other monumental historic events playing out all around the galaxy, i think the implications are that The Sepoy Option and Barregos actions are certainly going to make some serious ripples somehow and somewhere. Given that we have also have going on:

1) The fallout of Second Manticore
2) The confrontation between Tsang, and Manticore/Beowulf at the Junction
3) Beowulfs isolation and declaration of Succession from the League
4) The first "spontaneous" uprisings in the Shell and Verge
5) Rampajets Suicide
6) The Mass Bombings, Seccie Uprising's, and Occupation of Mesa
7) The Grand Alliance's first true military offensives
8) The preparations for the launch of the Renaissance Factor

This makes the fact that a single comparatively wealthy and successful Frontier Sector suddenly decides to go independent seem fairly small fry. Given that "Crisis" will eventually (in a century or so) be used to describe it, that implies it set off or was involved in some fairly major historic incidents. These have been a variety of things so ill list some I have thought up:

I had forgotten about those quotes from the fictional book. Good catch!

I'm not as confident that the existence of this book means that the Maya Crisis will be a major event. Remember that many people have written books about relatively minor persons and events before. For one thing, in a galaxy of thousands of planets, how many grad students are doing their theses in social sciences? How many of those will eventually try to publish their thesis as a book? As a librarian, I see this happen a lot. Grad students, especially in history or social sciences, are often desperate to find a topic that is unique enough to satisfy their thesis committee.

Or it could be a memoir or history published within the triumphant Maya star nation of the future. No matter how small the country or trivial its beginnings, someone will write the history of the origin of the nation.

Now, I actually believe that Barregos' Sepoy Option will be an important trigger in the collapse of the Solarian League. I just don't think that the existence of this history book is, by itself, a reliable clue to the importance of the event on the galactic scale.

Found a "duh moment" in Shadow Of Freedom this morning about the Roland's ability to stack salvos, by the way. All twelve tubes fire, not six front, six back. So with only a tiny tweek in terms of salvo speed, those suckers are going to equalize in terms of velocity very easily and then the second drive will kick in and bring the whole salvo in simultaneously.

I can think of a WHOLE lot of tactical variations on that theme that would be a copper plated -itch to anticipate by any non-GA/Haven ship or ships.

SWM wrote:

Valen123456 wrote:Given the numerous other monumental historic events playing out all around the galaxy, i think the implications are that The Sepoy Option and Barregos actions are certainly going to make some serious ripples somehow and somewhere. Given that we have also have going on:

[snip]

This makes the fact that a single comparatively wealthy and successful Frontier Sector suddenly decides to go independent seem fairly small fry. Given that "Crisis" will eventually (in a century or so) be used to describe it, that implies it set off or was involved in some fairly major historic incidents. These have been a variety of things so ill list some I have thought up:

I had forgotten about those quotes from the fictional book. Good catch!

I'm not as confident that the existence of this book means that the Maya Crisis will be a major event. Remember that many people have written books about relatively minor persons and events before. For one thing, in a galaxy of thousands of planets, how many grad students are doing their theses in social sciences? How many of those will eventually try to publish their thesis as a book? As a librarian, I see this happen a lot. Grad students, especially in history or social sciences, are often desperate to find a topic that is unique enough to satisfy their thesis committee.

Or it could be a memoir or history published within the triumphant Maya star nation of the future. No matter how small the country or trivial its beginnings, someone will write the history of the origin of the nation.

Now, I actually believe that Barregos' Sepoy Option will be an important trigger in the collapse of the Solarian League. I just don't think that the existence of this history book is, by itself, a reliable clue to the importance of the event on the galactic scale.

The only quote I could find was at the start of Torch. Unfortunately, it says nothing at all about the nature of the eponymous event, but it's cited

From Hester McReynolds,
Origins of the Maya Crisis.
(Ceres Press, Chicago, 2084 PD)

Being published on Earth more than a century later suggests that the "Crisis" was the generally-accepted term for whatever happened, so it was probably more than a minor event with no implications outside the Verge.
 

SharkHunter wrote:Found a "duh moment" in Shadow Of Freedom this morning about the Roland's ability to stack salvos, by the way. All twelve tubes fire, not six front, six back. So with only a tiny tweek in terms of salvo speed, those suckers are going to equalize in terms of velocity very easily and then the second drive will kick in and bring the whole salvo in simultaneously.

I can think of a WHOLE lot of tactical variations on that theme that would be a copper plated -itch to anticipate by any non-GA/Haven ship or ships.

I'm still sure that there are only 6 launch tubes per hammerhead for a single missile launch of 12 missiles. But it talks there about "double stacking" a launch tube. It goes on and on about needing only 17 seconds to get another missile ready to launch but having to wait another 17 seconds to get the second missile for that tube ready as well. Then the ship could fire a double stacked and staggered "broadside" of 24 missiles. Which adds up to the 120 missiles the 5 RMN DD's sent after each SLN BC. I am assuming that the "stagger" part of the launch is allowing for the missiles launched from the aft tubes to reorient themselves in the correct direction and then those missiles are joined by the ones launched from the fore tubes to make one solid flight of missiles.

SWM wrote:

Valen123456 wrote:Given the numerous other monumental historic events playing out all around the galaxy, i think the implications are that The Sepoy Option and Barregos actions are certainly going to make some serious ripples somehow and somewhere. Given that we have also have going on:

1) The fallout of Second Manticore
2) The confrontation between Tsang, and Manticore/Beowulf at the Junction
3) Beowulfs isolation and declaration of Succession from the League
4) The first "spontaneous" uprisings in the Shell and Verge
5) Rampajets Suicide
6) The Mass Bombings, Seccie Uprising's, and Occupation of Mesa
7) The Grand Alliance's first true military offensives
8) The preparations for the launch of the Renaissance Factor

This makes the fact that a single comparatively wealthy and successful Frontier Sector suddenly decides to go independent seem fairly small fry. Given that "Crisis" will eventually (in a century or so) be used to describe it, that implies it set off or was involved in some fairly major historic incidents. These have been a variety of things so ill list some I have thought up:

I had forgotten about those quotes from the fictional book. Good catch!

I'm not as confident that the existence of this book means that the Maya Crisis will be a major event. Remember that many people have written books about relatively minor persons and events before. For one thing, in a galaxy of thousands of planets, how many grad students are doing their theses in social sciences? How many of those will eventually try to publish their thesis as a book? As a librarian, I see this happen a lot. Grad students, especially in history or social sciences, are often desperate to find a topic that is unique enough to satisfy their thesis committee.

Or it could be a memoir or history published within the triumphant Maya star nation of the future. No matter how small the country or trivial its beginnings, someone will write the history of the origin of the nation.

Now, I actually believe that Barregos' Sepoy Option will be an important trigger in the collapse of the Solarian League. I just don't think that the existence of this history book is, by itself, a reliable clue to the importance of the event on the galactic scale.

Perhaps not the best choice of questions.

The correct question in my opinion is "how many of these books were quoted by the author?"

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote: So how long you can pull this off is really in doubt.

Well up to a year, given the communication lag, seems quite doable.

Even if Rozak has to tell them (or letters mention) he's been ordered to conduct commerce raiding, not a given, nobody would expect him to devote 100% of his forces to it. So for a while he can keep each ship of regulars thinking that its some other ships that got that duty.

And he should be able to come up with reasons to send some off of 4-6 month (non raiding) cruises, and until they come back and the various captains and crew manage to compare notes it's not easy to realize that nobody is raiding.


Plus at least some of the crews seem to be more in on the long term plans than others (the ones getting the Erewhonese tech - they at least have to know not to clue the rest of FF in on the fact that the Mantie-light ships seriously outclass the normal FF designs). If he can trust them then a variant of the above is that he could tell the more League loyal captains that he's only risking the new ships in commerce raiding. That could buy even more time as now all the ones most likely to alert the League have an explanation for why they aren't the ones raiding -- so until they get someone from a new ship to talk they can compare notes with each other all they like without realizing that nobody is hunting Manticoran commerce.


Can Maya keep this charade up indefinitely? Of course not. But given the lengthy com loops they can probably play a delaying game for a year or more -- giving more time to get their BC(P)s complete and in service before they have to break cover.

I think you under a year estimate is low. I think it would take the Mandarins at least 3 months and more likely 6 to do something if Barregos and Rozak told them to piss up a rope. If the Crews not loyal to Rozak take 6+ months to realize that they are not following orders from Sol, I can easily see the SLN taking months just to have the reports of disloyal behavior get to someone who can write the orders to do something about it.

Thus it could easily be 2 years after the squadron that the Mandarins were told was raiding Manticore got their orders to do a 6 month intensive survey of an uninhabited system 11 LY from Smoking Frog, that the SLN sends a task group to call Rozak on the carpet.

I have gone back and re-read some of the original posts in this thread and a lot of the conversation revolved around how the RMN or GSN and how many ships each had available. By those numbers it seems that even with advanced tech there is no way possible that the SEM can protect the massive amount of space they have taken over, considering Talbot and Meyers, let alone go on the offensive.

But everything was centered around Manticore and a little bit about Grayson, what about the other allies in the Grand Alliance? How many ships can they bring to the task? More than a couple I would imagine, especially when you include Haven. And the thing about an alliance is that you try to share your strengths. I bet Haven would really like some ghost rider FTL sensor/drones in their system. And Talbot and Meyers could really use a few ships extra from Haven to help with patrol and protection.

Also there is no discussion here or in the books about how fast Grayson might get their construction infrastructure back up and running. Or any information about how many resources they may be getting to help them recover.

Is there a discussion to be had about how the GA might combine it's resources and to what effect this can be used in beating up on the FF and beyond?