Core world vulnerability

Zakharra wrote: I doubt the GA is going to stomp on the larger successor states of the defunct SL just because it's too 'big'. If said new state declared itself neutral to the GA, the GA has no military reason to go after it.

I would expect the GA in general and SEM in particular to apply diplomatic pressure and mutual aid treaties with at-risk neighbors to control the size of potential adversaries.

I have no idea what size or level of aggression will be set, but the "Harrington Doctrine" specifically opposes any polity "big enough to cause trouble."

I wouldn't expect any sort of military response as a first option, but I would expect much higher levels of diplomatic contact and intelligence gathering. I'd also expect distance to be a factor; the further away a polity is, the less the GA will see it as a potential threat.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:It's much more difficult to arrange for the defection of a moderate or large formation than it is to corrupt a single flag officer.

Adm Rozhak seems to be managing just fine with the FF Task Force assigned to Maya. Granted he's had the time for a gradual vetting and purging of his task force personnel.

I think it will be easier for a charismatic leader to take an entire fleet or task force with them when they defect; especially if not defecting from the SLN or surrendering is patently insane.

Maybe a defection will not be necessary. Once the breakup of the SL is underway, units can justify transferring their loyalty to a successor state "with a heavy heart".

n7axw wrote:Will Battlefleet's personell's primary loyalty be to Solarian League and secondarily to their home worlds, or is it the other way around? Especially after their superiors put so many of their people in position where they couldn't fight back.

Don

I see it this way: If their primary loyalty was to their planet, then they would've joined their local SDF in the first place. Otherwise, they went into Battle Fleet to benefit from nepotism, which means a strong attachment to the status quo, which means a desire to preserve the Solarian League.

munroburton wrote:

n7axw wrote:Will Battlefleet's personell's primary loyalty be to Solarian League and secondarily to their home worlds, or is it the other way around? Especially after their superiors put so many of their people in position where they couldn't fight back.

Don

I see it this way: If their primary loyalty was to their planet, then they would've joined their local SDF in the first place. Otherwise, they went into Battle Fleet to benefit from nepotism, which means a strong attachment to the status quo, which means a desire to preserve the Solarian League.

Only if they choose Battle Fleet over their SDF for patriotic reasons. (As opposed to who was recruiting at the time, or wanting to see the galaxy, or anything else other that strong loyalty to the League over their home planet)

Just from shear size Battlefleet can accept a lot more people from each member star system that most of those systems small SDFs can.

What happens to all the OFS light combatants?

I don't remember seeing numbers of how many exist, but they are probably not going up against the GA forces and may largely survive.

Do they morf into a "Coast Guard" for successor states? Or hoist the Jolly Rodger and add to the chaos amoung the SL's bones?

spacerguy wrote:What happens to all the OFS light combatants?

I don't remember seeing numbers of how many exist, but they are probably not going up against the GA forces and may largely survive.

Do they morph into a "Coast Guard" for successor states? Or hoist the Jolly Rodger and add to the chaos amoung the SL's bones?

I think the most juduicious answer to the above is "Yes"

So far we've seem limited numbers of 'smaller than BC' ships on their own (the five DD's at Nolan, three at Saltash, a LC and three DD's at Mobius) and none of them have engaged what were obviously superior forces (the Slatash force might have considered it if the commander of the three DD's hadn't seen the Manties blow away four BC's.). The rest have been part of Byng's/Crandall's/Filareta's(?) Fleets.

I can't see a lot of them going pirate (these are professional military folks, not mercenaries), but there are going to be a lot of divided loyalties and I can see more than one FF Captain having to deal with incipient mutiny.

One of the myraid of issues that will have to be dealt with as the SL collapses in on itself.

We shall see...eventually.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:It seems to me that the key to this thing will be for the GA to identify the RF as an opponent.

That should be no real problem since the RF's goal is to be a "bigger and better" successor to the League and the GA goal is to break the League into small successor states with no single successor "large enough to cause problems" -- IIRC Honor's strategic outline.

The RF's goal is to eventually become the "bigger and better" successor to the League. Each RF member will start out as a local or regional defense force. Then I think the RF forces will form a mutual defense organization called the Renaissance Factor. And only in the fullness of time would people realize that the organization has morphed into a bigger and better Solarian League. I think they expect this process to take decades.

Hi SWM,

Kudos for typically very good points.

That MAlign expectation which very well could have meant taking decades for the formation of the RF has also gone off the rails given the GA's rise out of nowhere.

Manticore and Haven were supposed to have destroyed each other, leaving Beowulf no where else to go, so that the MAlign plan may have been to seduce her slowly over centuries until they didn't realise what had happened.

Now the GA is already the most powerful force in the explored galaxy, and smart SL members already know it.

Remember a quarter to a third of the SL already agreed with Beowulf, NTM that many other systems considerably differ politically with their corrupt representatives in the EC, so it could be far more that are very willing to join or ally with the GA much faster than anyone in the MAlign chorus ever dreamed of in their worst nightmares.

It's just so sad, after all those centuries of work, to keep failing in what they planned to happen.

The mandarins expect the protectorates and shells to quite ASAP, but the support in the core for Beowulf was much more than Kolokoltsov ever expected, NTM the first signs of a potential avalanche of rich powerful core systems leaving the SL that would also be potential GA allies.

While there probably will be predator core polities unassociated with the RF, we at least haven't had any hint that the MAlign planned to create an actual threat out of a SL member that didn't know its leaders were actually Alpha's bent on being as bad as a nightmare could be to pressure the rest into the arms of the comforting and protective RF.

It'd been suggested the MAlign may actually attempt to appear as the RMN to blacken its reputation by committing heinous acts, but that might backfire if such were met by one of too many GA TG's busy hamstringing the SL.

L

SWM wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:**quote="n7axw"**It seems to me that the key to this thing will be for the GA to identify the RF as an opponent. **quote**

That should be no real problem since the RF's goal is to be a "bigger and better" successor to the League and the GA goal is to break the League into small successor states with no single successor "large enough to cause problems" -- IIRC Honor's strategic outline.

The RF's goal is to eventually become the "bigger and better" successor to the League. Each RF member will start out as a local or regional defense force. Then I think the RF forces will form a mutual defense organization called the Renaissance Factor. And only in the fullness of time would people realize that the organization has morphed into a bigger and better Solarian League. I think they expect this process to take decades.

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote: I doubt the GA is going to stomp on the larger successor states of the defunct SL just because it's too 'big'. If said new state declared itself neutral to the GA, the GA has no military reason to go after it.

I would expect the GA in general and SEM in particular to apply diplomatic pressure and mutual aid treaties with at-risk neighbors to control the size of potential adversaries.

I have no idea what size or level of aggression will be set, but the "Harrington Doctrine" specifically opposes any polity "big enough to cause trouble."

I wouldn't expect any sort of military response as a first option, but I would expect much higher levels of diplomatic contact and intelligence gathering. I'd also expect distance to be a factor; the further away a polity is, the less the GA will see it as a potential threat.

I think it will be targeted against any new polity that looks to become an immediate threat to 1o-20 years out. Anything longer out in time simply cannot be seen except by paranoiacs. So any new large stellar nations that form from the SL's corpse, as long as they say they are neutral and look to be neutral, the GA will leave them alone.

I agree that the GA would concentrate on the systems closer to it, and wouldn't necessarily do anything if a large nation arose on the other side of the SL (distance playing a factor) as well as a willingness to stomp on any and all perceived or imagined threats. The GA cannot actively prevent the forming of all stellar nations that might form, that would kill it's PR image big time.



Very good points Lyonheart.

SWM wrote:The RF's goal is to eventually become the "bigger and better" successor to the League. Each RF member will start out as a local or regional defense force. Then I think the RF forces will form a mutual defense organization called the Renaissance Factor. And only in the fullness of time would people realize that the organization has morphed into a bigger and better Solarian League. I think they expect this process to take decades.

Then the RF will "eventually" show up on the SEM's radar as a threat. The RF's strategy is to give the impression of "big brother protecting the weaker" and not force anyone to join -- Albrecht specifically warns one of the rulers to let a friend go his own way until he's ready to join. But sooner or later, the RF is going to become "bigger than us" and be seen as a potential threat.