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SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion

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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by PeterZ   » Wed Aug 11, 2021 11:50 pm

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Very GOOD, RFC!
Audrey's manifest won't be activated, ever. That's what Michael Anderle is for. Her body guard has her under surveillance almost 24/7. I am sure he has recording devices capturing whatever they discuss as well as anything he is present for. That's a lot of data for an AI to crunch through. Certainly enough to infer/deduce what she might be thinking. Michael will pop her if her thoughts are deemed likely to wander into dangerous territory.

That's pretty risky, but it is apparent that in order for the BS story that the Darius malign is warm and cuddly, Audrey can't be terminated via nano-suicide. If Michael kills her or is prevented from killing her should she be discovered, that is proof that Audrey is not mistaken about HER Alignment. Heck, I suspect that Michael might be a Darius Rebel MAlign plant to turn/recruit Audrey.

The story has so much going for it! That makes the rather obvious mistakes that much harder to swallow. I understand wanting to keep the GA from getting the spider drive. But the MAlign set up Galton to be the patsy in such a way that the GA won't believe Galton was behind it all. They left the trail to be discovered and sacrificed all those lives in Galton. Did all that for nothing. Worse than nothing, because when Darius is discovered with the attendant spider drive ships guarding the star system, the GA will know their true enemy.
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by Theemile   » Thu Aug 12, 2021 9:35 am

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jtg452 wrote:
Torlek wrote:I guess competently and methodically executed with minimal losses is as brilliant as siege warfare gets.


I agree. There wasn't a whole lot of room for finesse, maneuver or misdirection (Honor's trademark) in the battle.

She's attacking a fixed location with defense in depth. Being sneaky isn't going to fake the opposition out of position or to commit inadequate forces because Honor's fooled them into thinking that she's weaker than she actually was. The only possible way that would work is if the defenders had sallied and they were outnumbered about 10 to 1, so that ain't an option.

Galton was no different than a castle siege in the Middle Ages. Filling in the moat and storming the wall by escalade is costly to the attackers and plays to the strength of the defenders. It doesn't matter if you're using stones and arrows or multi-drive missiles with ranges measured in light seconds, the results are the same.

She also played to her strengths rather than running head first into the strength of their defenses. When you have a long range accuracy advantage, why not extend the engagement range and hold it open?



But why was it a simple Seige? Galton played into her hand and made it one. They had 57 SDs with FLT coms. They could have run them out to the hyper limit and micro jumped to a predetermined rendezvous, then coordinated an attack on Honor's formation with an attack of Hasta 3s or Graser Cataphracts and the mobile force. Heck, they could have had a 2nd fleet waiting at a rendezvous to mousetrap Honor.

But no, the mobile units stayed glued to the orbitals in a defensive formation (which Honor all but ignored), meaning Honor just had to defend against the system defense weapons.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by jtg452   » Thu Aug 12, 2021 8:14 pm

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Theemile wrote:

But why was it a simple Seige? Galton played into her hand and made it one. They had 57 SDs with FLT coms. They could have run them out to the hyper limit and micro jumped to a predetermined rendezvous, then coordinated an attack on Honor's formation with an attack of Hasta 3s or Graser Cataphracts and the mobile force. Heck, they could have had a 2nd fleet waiting at a rendezvous to mousetrap Honor.

But no, the mobile units stayed glued to the orbitals in a defensive formation (which Honor all but ignored), meaning Honor just had to defend against the system defense weapons.


Galton's mobile forces were in the inner systen when the GA showed up. That's why it was a siege. Remember, the only warning they had was from Benjamin Detweiler. The man that doesn't exist. Scotty's recon run wasn't picked up, so they didn't know what was eminent. You don't park your fleet out on the hyper limit for no reason- and there was no reason.

Honor stayed outside the limit, so popping into hyper and coming out in front of the Galtonese ships making for the hyper limit would have been simple once they committed to crossing the limit in a certain area. Since Honor had 4 times the ships, scattering like a covey of quail wouldn't have worked either. All Honor had to do once they made that commitment would be detatch a Task Force (my bet would have been on the Andies since the Havenites, Graysons and Manties have all had a shot at the Alignment) that hypers across the system, drops out of hyper and starts rolling pods.

57 SD's sounds impressive- except you left out that only 1/3 of them were SD(P)'s. That means it's really 20-ish SD(P)'s with about 30 really big decoys with heavy anti-missile capablilties.

She ignored it because it didn't warrant her attention.
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by Donnachaidh   » Fri Aug 13, 2021 12:06 am

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Now that I've had a bit to let it settle, I think the thing that's seems off to me about To End In Fire is that it feels like 2 different books. The first with Crown of Slaves crew and the second feels like a mini mainline Honor novel.

I'm not saying it was necessarily bad but I think it would have felt better paced and the plotline more developed if it had been 2 full length novels. Though it could be that I just want 2 books instead of one... :lol:
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Fri Aug 13, 2021 1:20 am

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Theemile wrote:
jtg452 wrote:
Galton was no different than a castle siege in the Middle Ages. Filling in the moat and storming the wall by escalade is costly to the attackers and plays to the strength of the defenders. It doesn't matter if you're using stones and arrows or multi-drive missiles with ranges measured in light seconds, the results are the same.

She also played to her strengths rather than running head first into the strength of their defenses. When you have a long range accuracy advantage, why not extend the engagement range and hold it open?



But why was it a simple Seige? Galton played into her hand and made it one. They had 57 SDs with FLT coms. They could have run them out to the hyper limit and micro jumped to a predetermined rendezvous, then coordinated an attack on Honor's formation with an attack of Hasta 3s or Graser Cataphracts and the mobile force. Heck, they could have had a 2nd fleet waiting at a rendezvous to mousetrap Honor.


The problem of running 57 SDs out to the hyper limit is that they would be obliterated by a 50,000 plus Apollo missile storm before they reach the hyper limit.
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by Theemile   » Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:54 am

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Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
jtg452 wrote:
Galton was no different than a castle siege in the Middle Ages. Filling in the moat and storming the wall by escalade is costly to the attackers and plays to the strength of the defenders. It doesn't matter if you're using stones and arrows or multi-drive missiles with ranges measured in light seconds, the results are the same.

She also played to her strengths rather than running head first into the strength of their defenses. When you have a long range accuracy advantage, why not extend the engagement range and hold it open?

Theemile wrote:
But why was it a simple Seige? Galton played into her hand and made it one. They had 57 SDs with FLT coms. They could have run them out to the hyper limit and micro jumped to a predetermined rendezvous, then coordinated an attack on Honor's formation with an attack of Hasta 3s or Graser Cataphracts and the mobile force. Heck, they could have had a 2nd fleet waiting at a rendezvous to mousetrap Honor.

jtg452 wrote:The problem of running 57 SDs out to the hyper limit is that they would be obliterated by a 50,000 plus Apollo missile storm before they reach the hyper limit.


Who said they have to run to the closest hyper limit - they could have run out to the far side of the system.

I'm not saying it's good tactics, I just saying it's tactics. Honor played the distant siege because it played into her hand - Galton didn't play the mobile card, so Honor didn't need to.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by jtg452   » Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:13 am

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Theemile wrote:
Who said they have to run to the closest hyper limit - they could have run out to the far side of the system.

They never would have cross the hyper limit no matter what direction they headed.

The GA was outside the limit and could go into hyper as quick as their generators could cycle (about 4 1/2 minutes according to the book). Once in hyper, they could cross the system while in hyper (or go around the gravity bubble or whatever it it) and come back out in front of the Galton force before they could cross the limit. The Galton ships would have never gotten to a point where they could go to hyper because the GA fleet had the maneuver advantage and hyper gave them the means of heading off anyone trying to leave the system. If they stayed in a group, one task force (of the 4 making up the GA fleet) would have been enough to put an end to them.

Even resorting to 'scatter, every ship for itself', wouldn't have worked since the GA had 200 wallers- so over a 3 to 1 advantage. Nobody in their right mind wants to get into a knife fight with 3 Invictus SD(P)'s, or the Grayson Haven or Andie equivalents for that matter, when outnumbered that badly.

And that's just the big boys, the GA fleet's escort forces aren't going to be small either and then there's all of those LAC's (there were 75 carriers present if memory serves) that no ship is going to be able to run away from without going hyper. I wouldn't suggest any single ship of any type getting into a brawl with a while division of the same class of ships from any of the GA navies.

Staying in system in planetary orbit at least strengthened the counter missile defense of the inner ring. Moving further out system just would have made them targets.
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by cnrd22   » Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:53 am

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Donnachaidh wrote:Now that I've had a bit to let it settle, I think the thing that's seems off to me about To End In Fire is that it feels like 2 different books. The first with Crown of Slaves crew and the second feels like a mini mainline Honor novel.

I'm not saying it was necessarily bad but I think it would have felt better paced and the plotline more developed if it had been 2 full length novels. Though it could be that I just want 2 books instead of one... :lol:



I think that DW stated that there will be no more "mainline" Honor novels as Honor's arc ended in Uncompromising Honor so it was a pleasant surprise to bring her from retirement to take care of Galton; I am really curious where the series goes next as I can see two paths:

One- the Galton gambit works for a time and the series jumps into the future (maybe after one book where the investigation of Galton goes nowhere, so even if some are convinced that the Alignment is still out there, they have no clue where and the SL goes pear-shaped despite the new Constitution, etc leaving too many fires to be put out - see for example the throwaway comment about how the planet where Techodyne is based refused to ratify the Constitution)

Two - despite growing pains SL stabilizes and accpets GA as a peer, Galton gambit fails somehow, the Darius hunt is on the way, Zach reappears and the series truly ends in another book or two with the complete defeat of the Alignment (and maybe some escapees far away to rebuild it in centuries)

I think the next book will clearly show us where the series go as this book was an excellent transition one but nothing is really setteled
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by munroburton   » Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:15 pm

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Theemile wrote:So now we have the following Alignment Factions:

Mesan Benign - aka The Engagement
Galton Malign - Evil Patsy Version
Darius Malign - Cute, Cudley, "eliminates the evidence with prejudice" version
Darius Malign - Darius Rebel Cell edition.
(complete with a "Fiberglass Falcon" (Glider))

I still have to ask, who is the Darius Malign is kidding, trying to pull that sweet and cuddly act. They are the ones with dozens of Leonard Detweiler Spider drive SDs under construction. They are the ones casually thinking about activating their lunch lady's nanobots because she might have heard some gossip while slinging hash in the lunch line. They are the ones who just shreeded Audrey's leg, to send her a message and give her street cred (and would happily do it again).


Image
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Re: SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion
Post by Theemile   » Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:03 pm

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munroburton wrote:
Theemile wrote:So now we have the following Alignment Factions:

Mesan Benign - aka The Engagement
Galton Malign - Evil Patsy Version
Darius Malign - Cute, Cudley, "eliminates the evidence with prejudice" version
Darius Malign - Darius Rebel Cell edition.
(complete with a "Fiberglass Falcon" (Glider))

I still have to ask, who is the Darius Malign is kidding, trying to pull that sweet and cuddly act. They are the ones with dozens of Leonard Detweiler Spider drive SDs under construction. They are the ones casually thinking about activating their lunch lady's nanobots because she might have heard some gossip while slinging hash in the lunch line. They are the ones who just shreeded Audrey's leg, to send her a message and give her street cred (and would happily do it again).


Image


perfect...
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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