Honorverse ramblings and musings

Duckk wrote:It took the RHN 5 years at crash priority to catch back up with Manticore, and that was with a ruthlessly practical R&D head, their most modern shipyard, a carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, and 10 preceding years of a losing war to clear out the cruft. Even after making the huge supposition that the League could pull off the same trick (which they most certainly can not), that's 5 years of the Alliance running rampant. The League is not going to survive as a cohesive entity after 5 years of military and economic pressure. It's going to lose the Verge completely, most of the Shell, and even the Core worlds are going to be fractured into multiple, even dozens of pieces.

And at that point, the Grand Alliance is going to be doing a brisk trade at least with all of those successor states, will have kept improving its tech base (the RHN, for instance, will likely have current RMN tech and training standards), they'll have mutual defense agreements or at least very biased neutrality with many former League Verge and Shell states, and won't be facing a vastly larger and wealthier League at all.

That rump Core League may find itself willing, and able, to be a far more unified state than the old League ever was, but it's much less likely to find itself able and willing to pursue a war to the death with the rest of human civilization, under the banner of the mighty old Solarian League and its dream of humanity peacefully united in a single state. Wars change things - what was once unthinkable becomes accepted status quo, what was once intolerable becomes much better than continuing this mess.

Look at the situation that we, the readers, see developing:

1) The GA has a massive tech advantage over the SL. Manticore and Grayson are trying to recover thier orbital industrail capacity but Haven, The Aldermani and Erwhon are still cranking out ships and in a within 2yrs Haven should be generating full-up Manti tec. In the interim, RMN is still both massive and most advance (except for legacy ships)

2) The Alignment has its Spider and Streak drives and (at least) the Cataphract family of missle weapons. They have the Detweiler Class building but we don't have a really good read on those except they "appear" to have been designed to be used for Oyster Bay style attacks

3) The RF has an outline, structure, and a plan though not yet actually implemented where anyone else knows about it even as the nominal 1st spliters of the SL that will form an alliance to protect themselves as the League shatters.

4) The Maya Sector is long since organized to pull out of the League- well, OFS control- and has at least Manti lite tech.

5) A LOT of fracture lines are starting to show with the League. 1st (in the shadows) is the RF and then Maya. There is also the problems that were shown in the League Chamber with a number of Beowulf's trading partners appearing to start making moves to advance themselves at Beowulf's expense- and doing it more or less openly in the Chamber

6) The general plan advanced to Kingwood (and he appears to be going to implement) is commerce raiding against the GA (at least aimed at Manticore if not both they and Haven) One not-so-little problem with that is that it will commit huge numbers of the light to medium SLN (mostly FF) warships to the plan and they are probably going to get hammered. This would mean that the types of ships that the SL actualy needs (not the useless for fleet work SDs) are going to be in even shorter supply to do the support of the SLN in keeping systems in the League and enforcing SL power.

7) Lacoon II blew the already awfull position the Mandarin's discussed of the concequences of Lacoon I right off the top floor of any building you care to name and that hasn't even begun to get into the thinking of most SL citizens. With every wormhole shut, each one further slashes not only the income stream for the SL/OFS in terms of wormhole fees on those actualy closed to SL traffic, the effect echos and magnifies back through ALL of the space lanes and wormholes that WOULD have carried the traffic that WOULD have gone though the now closed holes. That, amoung other things drops all of the taxes and fees at both the SL and local System levels as trade/goods stop flowing and sales drop. The logistics network at the interstellar level is massivly crippled- and the average person on the street hasn't yet got a clue. But they will.

8) The Haven Quadrant- plus Erwheon and Maya (which aren't in that quadrant) actually does have an intact trade net (although the Haven and "new friends" are just getting restarted). Manticore and Grayson do have the problme of the rebuild of the industrial base but they are working on that and withing the Haven Quadrant (and that leg to Erwhon etc) they have an intact trade sphere.

The League, as presently constituted and run is going to be like a gasoline engine with the fuel line crushed almost flat. As more and more systems (and other things such as the Transtellars) discover that the rules have changed drastically, they will begin the drive to expand thier power and control over "new markets" such as star systems. That will be both economic and political in every combination you can think of. The enforcement of the SL rules and regulation done by SLN and the SL bureaucracy is going out of the position it held and the scramble to get established in the eventual new framework is going to be what shatters the League.

The Alignment doesn't have to do more than nudge things with military force in places where things aren't going well for it's plans. The alignment doesn't need to physicaly have military power on planets, it needs to push the political and philosophical perspective of the various populations to its vision of Humanity.

cthia wrote:Question.

During the existing 'state' of war between the League and the Manties, would ambassadors of each be allowed to remain on the host planet? Surely not. And with the junctions closed and travel curtailed, how would Manticore know what is going on within the League?

News media ships and some others are still going through the Junction. Illicit bulk trade with Manticore will certainly continue, followed by licit trade with secessionist states. Erewhon, Torch, and Maya are conduits for information out of the League, as well as the Andermani and other small neutral Verge states. And then there are spies, of course.

Whatever information is collected can move freely, safely and rapidly to and from Manticore through the wormhole network, while League information has to go the long way or sneak through wormhole transits. Judging from 2nd Manticore, what Manticore passes through for the League is what Manticore wants the League to know, so the League is likely to get more skittish and skeptical about whatever information passes through that way.

You'd get less information and less reliably than you would with full freedom of courier transit and immediate, certain diplomatic cover for espionage, but there's nothing like an Iron Curtain being dropped by the state of war.

Duckk wrote:Of course the League is going to fight. Gweon's briefing in ART says as much. It's either fight with a hope of hanging on, or not fight and guarantee the League disintegrates. It's still not going to matter.

Some think like Beowulf and knows the League is full of shit, and wants no part of it. They want out.

Some don't know whose fault this mess is, but they do know they didn't sign up for the rise of a powerful centralized government which must inevitably arise when fighting a war. They want out.

Some don't care about Manticore and the conflict, but do see their economies contracting due to the trade interdiction, their constituents are demanding relief, and know that they can cut a deal. They want out.

Some see this as an opportunity to grab power in their own region of space (and no, it's not just the Verge and the Alignment's member states). They want out.

It doesn't matter how much your hypothetical "charismatic leader" type person tries to rally the the League. There are forces far more powerful than a single personality at play here. Getting out of the line of fire does not necessarily mean joining the enemies of the League (albeit true specifically for Beowulf). Lots of nations declared neutrality or were simply uninvolved during the World Wars. Indeed, getting someone up on the podium and declaring "you're either with us or against us" is exactly the kind of polarization which will further alienate League members.

It took the RHN 5 years at crash priority to catch back up with Manticore, and that was with a ruthlessly practical R&D head, their most modern shipyard, a carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, and 10 preceding years of a losing war to clear out the cruft. Even after making the huge supposition that the League could pull off the same trick (which they most certainly can not), that's 5 years of the Alliance running rampant. The League is not going to survive as a cohesive entity after 5 years of military and economic pressure. It's going to lose the Verge completely, most of the Shell, and even the Core worlds are going to be fractured into multiple, even dozens of pieces.

Ok, I think we've established the fact that I'm thick headed and they want out. lol

Playing devil's advocate's advocate ain't easy, I'm telling you.

But will it be so easy for them to get out? The League isn't just going to twiddle its thumbs and give the little ducks a push 'across the street.' The SLN still has plenty of ships and how are these 'traitorous in the time of war' member states going to protect themselves from the League hammer? The SLN is impotent against anything in the Haven sector, but their impotence does NOT extend outside of the Haven sector.

And along with their shipping raids on Manticore -- which is probably intended to be implemented to have the same effect as Manticoran rear area raids against Haven -- to busy and thinly redistribute the enemy ships -- should prove to be quite effective against limited GA ships. A GA whose hands are 'politically' tied from delivering a knockout punch because. Because of the GA's 'Do not fire 'til fired upon' policy. A policy that refers to the GA's unwillingness to officially declare war against the League lest the League does (for whatever reasons) -- thus tying its hands militarily. IMO.

Sanctions! "Oh, they are working." Heard that before on Earth.

Plus, if a dark cloud descends on Beowulf, then what motivation will other member states have -- after the example made of Beowulf -- who will then feel as vulnerable to League pressure as ever?


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"Gweon's briefing in Art?" Yet another memo I didn't get. Is the High Ridge government still withholding information? I thought it had been ousted. lol

If the League is going to fight then why all the fuss? That's all I ever really wanted for Christmas!

However, in what form will they fight? Will I finally get my 'SLN All IN?' Surely the entire cake won't just consist of rear area raids, but rather the icing.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5314&p=131216&hilit=SLN+all+in+response#p131216

Brigade XO wrote:Look at the situation that we, the readers, see developing:

1) The GA has a massive tech advantage over the SL. Manticore and Grayson are trying to recover thier orbital industrail capacity but Haven, The Aldermani and Erwhon are still cranking out ships and in a within 2yrs Haven should be generating full-up Manti tec. In the interim, RMN is still both massive and most advance (except for legacy ships)

2) The Alignment has its Spider and Streak drives and (at least) the Cataphract family of missle weapons. They have the Detweiler Class building but we don't have a really good read on those except they "appear" to have been designed to be used for Oyster Bay style attacks

3) The RF has an outline, structure, and a plan though not yet actually implemented where anyone else knows about it even as the nominal 1st spliters of the SL that will form an alliance to protect themselves as the League shatters.

4) The Maya Sector is long since organized to pull out of the League- well, OFS control- and has at least Manti lite tech.

5) A LOT of fracture lines are starting to show with the League. 1st (in the shadows) is the RF and then Maya. There is also the problems that were shown in the League Chamber with a number of Beowulf's trading partners appearing to start making moves to advance themselves at Beowulf's expense- and doing it more or less openly in the Chamber

6) The general plan advanced to Kingwood (and he appears to be going to implement) is commerce raiding against the GA (at least aimed at Manticore if not both they and Haven) One not-so-little problem with that is that it will commit huge numbers of the light to medium SLN (mostly FF) warships to the plan and they are probably going to get hammered. This would mean that the types of ships that the SL actualy needs (not the useless for fleet work SDs) are going to be in even shorter supply to do the support of the SLN in keeping systems in the League and enforcing SL power.

7) Lacoon II blew the already awfull position the Mandarin's discussed of the concequences of Lacoon I right off the top floor of any building you care to name and that hasn't even begun to get into the thinking of most SL citizens. With every wormhole shut, each one further slashes not only the income stream for the SL/OFS in terms of wormhole fees on those actualy closed to SL traffic, the effect echos and magnifies back through ALL of the space lanes and wormholes that WOULD have carried the traffic that WOULD have gone though the now closed holes. That, amoung other things drops all of the taxes and fees at both the SL and local System levels as trade/goods stop flowing and sales drop. The logistics network at the interstellar level is massivly crippled- and the average person on the street hasn't yet got a clue. But they will.

8) The Haven Quadrant- plus Erwheon and Maya (which aren't in that quadrant) actually does have an intact trade net (although the Haven and "new friends" are just getting restarted). Manticore and Grayson do have the problme of the rebuild of the industrial base but they are working on that and withing the Haven Quadrant (and that leg to Erwhon etc) they have an intact trade sphere.

The League, as presently constituted and run is going to be like a gasoline engine with the fuel line crushed almost flat. As more and more systems (and other things such as the Transtellars) discover that the rules have changed drastically, they will begin the drive to expand thier power and control over "new markets" such as star systems. That will be both economic and political in every combination you can think of. The enforcement of the SL rules and regulation done by SLN and the SL bureaucracy is going out of the position it held and the scramble to get established in the eventual new framework is going to be what shatters the League.

The Alignment doesn't have to do more than nudge things with military force in places where things aren't going well for it's plans. The alignment doesn't need to physicaly have military power on planets, it needs to push the political and philosophical perspective of the various populations to its vision of Humanity.

You forgot 1 item

The Alignment has thousands of sleeper moles in place throughout the League and other polities in key positions that hold sway. They will not be the person who turns the wheel to open a floodgate, but the person who designed the maintenance schedule 2 years ago so that the gates would be opened tomorrow at a specific time automatically. They are not necessary the trigger pullers who can be recognized, identified, and vilified, but usually the influencers, in oblique positions of deniability, slowly changing the political landscape to what the Alignment needs and desires, as others guide the ship of state off course.

David's already given out several infodumps about how the Alliance has devised (and in some cases, already implemented) ways to greatly mitigate the threat of commerce raiders. These people have been at war for the better part of two decades; they know how to protect merchant traffic at this point. One cannot guarantee that the occasional raid will not get through, but the loss rate will be overwhelmingly in the Alliance's favor.

cthia wrote:If the League is going to fight then why all the fuss? That's all I ever really wanted for Christmas!

I dunno, we all knew the League was going to fight as it was discussed at the end of ART. You are the one who started the tangent with "Everyone keeps pointing out the little time the SLN has and I keep hearing a little demon on my shoulders whispering in my ear 'Remember what happened to Japan when Yamamoto awakened a sleeping giant?'"

cthia wrote:But will it be so easy for them to get out? The League isn't just going to twiddle its thumbs and give the little ducks a push 'across the street.' The SLN still has plenty of ships ...

Although the SLN still has enormous numbers of ships in absolute terms, it does NOT have "plenty of ships." It doesn't even have enough ships to police the protectorates and Verge without the reputation for invincibility -- ref: a comment about being able to send a destroyer when a division of BCs was what was really needed, or WTTE.

In Adm Kingsford's status report the lack of sufficient numbers for really effective commerce raiding is mentioned, without any mention of ships needed to suppress rebellion.

The SLN is planning on sending 100 SDs (and minimal screen) to Beowulf to intimidate a desired result from the Secession vote. If that is the level of force the SLN thinks it needs to subdue rebellious SDFs, then they have enough ships to deal with about 0.5-1.0% of League Members. That's hardly "plenty of ships."

cthia wrote:But will it be so easy for them to get out? The League isn't just going to twiddle its thumbs and give the little ducks a push 'across the street.' The SLN still has plenty of ships and how are these 'traitorous in the time of war' member states going to protect themselves from the League hammer? The SLN is impotent against anything in the Haven sector, but their impotence does NOT extend outside of the Haven sector.

And along with their shipping raids on Manticore -- which is probably intended to be implemented to have the same effect as Manticoran rear area raids against Haven -- to busy and thinly redistribute the enemy ships -- should prove to be quite effective against limited GA ships. A GA whose hands are 'politically' tied from delivering a knockout punch because. Because of the GA's 'Do not fire 'til fired upon' policy. A policy that refers to the GA's unwillingness to officially declare war against the League lest the League does (for whatever reasons) -- thus tying its hands militarily. IMO.

I don't think that policy is much in force after the League sent 400 capital ships to the Manticore System telling it to roll over and surrender. It's certainly not in evidence with 10th Fleet punching out Meyers. They're certainly not politically tied where system governments request assistance of them against Frontier Fleet raiders - in that case, their hands are politically tied to attacking FF, not against it!

They may not be entirely free to whomp SLN formations absolutely anywhere without painting a picture they don't want. They're certainly not free to attack member system assets, or even attack where those assets are predictable collateral damage without overwhelming reason demanding it. But at this point, they're certainly still going to look like they're in the right smacking the League jackboot oppressing people who want out and away, which is precisely what would be secessionists need.

Sanctions! "Oh, they are working." Heard that before on Earth.

It's a bit different when the "sanctions" eliminate the entire financial base of the enemy. The League does not have the kind of funding structure any normal state would. Keep repeating that til it sinks in. If it cannot collect tariffs and fees from interstellar trade, or squeeze protectorates, It. Has. No. Money. Having no money and no permission to borrow means no function. That's not a disaster for the member states either - they got along without the League before, they'll get along without the League after. No interstellar trade to speak of is a medium-sized problem for them - it won't mean starvation, but it will mean an economic hit - but they can opt out of the League and resume that at any time.

Plus, if a dark cloud descends on Beowulf, then what motivation will other member states have -- after the example made of Beowulf -- who will then feel as vulnerable to League pressure as ever?

If a dark cloud succeeds in snuffing out Beowulf's independence, they'll know that the League is as impressed with their constitutional rights as it is any Verge "protectorate". So it's definitely the bad guy, they can expect to be reduced to helots too, and their move is to settle down exactly as long as it takes them to get the League out and away. Any GA force is a welcome liberator.

If the dark cloud attempts to snuff out Beowulf and fails, they learn the same lesson minus the fear. Any GA force whomping SLN forces nearby gets cheered almost as much.

If there's not visible dark cloud moving on Beowulf, the League gets to look less like a dictator (in the Core) for now, but secession is established as something you really can do, at least if you've got friends to scare the SLN off. GA forces nearby may look somewhat comforting, so long as they're not messing with system assets or FF units doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing.

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"Gweon's briefing in Art?" Yet another memo I didn't get. Is the High Ridge government still withholding information? I thought it had been ousted. lol

Near the end of ART. Gweon is an adviser to Kingsford, laying out the long-term economic forecast and a time a few years down the road when the GA economy may actually be larger than that of the remaining League. Go back, read or reread it - it's sobering. Mind you, Gweon is an Alignment agent, so it's meant to nudge Kingsford into pushing that dark cloud over Beowulf with all the disastrous results that will bring, but he's not having to do more than accentuate the negative a little to do it.

If the League is going to fight then why all the fuss? That's all I ever really wanted for Christmas!

However, in what form will they fight? Will I finally get my 'SLN All IN?' Surely the entire cake won't just consist of rear area raids, but rather the icing.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5314&p=131216&hilit=SLN+all+in+response#p131216

Sure, the SLN will fight, some. Hopefully forces will have the sense to surrender when the tactical situation is hopeless for them, which it will be far more often than they yet realize. The strategic situation is hopeless, barring statesman-like political suicide moves by the Mandarins - come clean, call for peace, admit everything, actual transparency. But admirals don't get to surrender their states, barring coups, and the Mandarins aren't going to duck out and flee soon enough for their successors to make the smart move for the League. (The League has a hard enough time finding uniformed sorts willing to die for it; finding senior bureaucrats willing to do that is asking much too much.)

Some of those SLN admirals are beginning to appreciate the tactical realities, and maybe some will appreciate the political ones too. Roszak did, years ago. Maybe some of them will improvise their own Sepoy Options.

At any rate - there isn't a combination of smarts and aggressiveness that will let the League win. It's a dead state walking. If some flag officers are going to ride fleets down in perfectly aggressive failure, it may entertain you but it's not going to serve their state and it's not going to be the smart move.

Picking out some infodumps:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5763&p=146341

You and I are going to have to agree to disagree. Among other things, you seem to see the SL as far more monolithic than I do, and you seem to severely overestimate how difficult the RMN will find it to protect any Manty shipping which reenters SL space. Or, for that matter, to provide the coercion/cover to encourage systems outside the Core to reopen their interstellar commerce under the GA's hospices. The League is anything but "monolithic" in terms of the degree of loyalty the vast majority of its non-Core star systems feel to the New Chicago-based bureaucrats or two OFS.

The transstellars whose survival depends on interstellar commerce are at best amoral were anything remotely like "patriotism" is involved. They've been part of an essentially corrupt system of cynical payoffs and bribes for so long that they will readily trade with the enemy — or allow the enemy to provide the necessary shipping to trade with their existing customers — even in time of war.

The League system governments in the Shell and (even more) the ones in the Verge are also going to feel a very limited sense of loyalty to the central non-government in New Chicago. One of the problems that the Mandarins have is that the bureaucracy the League has constructed instead of a participatory, responsive political government does not engender loyalty. It creates clients, and those clients' loyalty to their patrons is dependent on how well it works for the clients. Given an opportunity to become their own masters — or to at least find more generous patrons — they'll take it. And the mechanics of how interstellar trade can be reestablished even during wartime under Grand Alliance auspices and protection are a lot simpler than you seem to be assuming.


viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2179&p=42713

However, that's scarcely the only reason why it is extraordinarily unlikely that 1,800 star systems would decide to seek vengeance against the Grand Alliance. Those eighteen hundred star systems include quite a few star systems that aren't full members and don't much like the League. For instance, there's this little outfit called Maya. Those star systems are included in the total count for the League's systems, but somehow I don't have the feeling that they would rally round to avenge one of the Core systems which have been cheerfully allowing OFS to have its way in the protectorates just because someone came in and blew that Core system's industrial, economic, and military infrastructure into dustbunnies. In addition to "League star systems" which are currently in protectorate status, there are also Shell member systems which were fairly recently in protectorate status and would cheerfully go their own way as either an independent system or in association with other independent systems which had shaken the dust of the Solarian League from their sandals. That is, in fact, a large part of what the Mesan Alignment is counting on in its plans for the meltdown and replacement of the League.