Has anyone else decided to root against Manticore?

In three basic responses here: I am generally talking about the main line books, as those tend to be the ones most responsible for defining the universe (beyond the malign introduction)...though I’d consider any off-shoot of sufficient severity.


1) The “Setbacks” have no actual consequence, they merely create the mask of one.

A) Eliazabeth is on the throne. And the incoming government and change of monarch caused transition problems, a shake out of the court based on the re-aligning favor, her inexperience showing through in the operation of her duties, and public and foreign confidence in the new leader required time and effort...which president was it that said it really takes a year before you even know where the bathrooms in the whitehouse are?

But, no, not actually. None of that happened. Instead, we get a perfect continuation of government from a character who is virtually a carbon copy of her predecessor. And then an extraordinarily successful round of foreign affairs that she helps spearhead. Not really a setback is it?

B) Oyster bay. Yes, the numbers are large, and much writing goes into decrying just how awful it is. Funnily enough, the SEM doesn’t suffer in the slightest. There is no drop in combat readiness. The economy tools along just fine. The entire industrial base is transferred to a foreign power seamlessly. Literally in the same book that we are being told Buccaneer has effectively knocked neutral systems back decades, centuries, we’re hearing “don’t worry, our recovery estimates say six months”...and we’re still magically rich too!”.

No actual setback occurred.

C) One Nike left. And the RMN has steamrolled everyone anyhow. And maintained enough light units to patrol their new empire. And even their older heavy cruisers are sufficient to drive the next competing powers missile hit rate down to under 3% while they can drive a packet of missiles wherever they please. Oh, and despite the largest naval losses in history at 1st manticore, and oyster bay, the RMN is still pumping units out to the point where a few squadrons of Nikes represent a marginal loss of combat power. Besides writing how tragic it is, I fail to see the issue?

D) Treecats. The vaunted treecat genocide ends with the SEM getting free nano-tech identifying telepath bodyguards for everyone. This is a setback?

E) Tricked into going to war...which has left them as the reigning super-power in the Universe. And has yet to have a consequenced effect of any scale beyond “I’m killing some people so we can feel righteous”. Practically zero tactical losses. OB has effectively been ignored. Lacoon cutting both ways because the SL was the manties biggest potential trade market? Of course not!

It all adds up to the equivalent of writing “and then Rocky got punched in the face really hard, so hard that the evil scientists said it was many Newton’s more than anyone had ever been punched, but he was Rocky so his noble chin did not so much as waver, his eye did not black, and he was filled by the cold steely vengeance of the morally upstanding after briefly thinking of Adrienne. He then knocked his opponent senseless with one jab”


2) Of Reaping and Sowing - TO BE CONTINUED

GloriousRuse wrote:C) One Nike left. And the RMN has steamrolled everyone anyhow. And maintained enough light units to patrol their new empire. And even their older heavy cruisers are sufficient to drive the next competing powers missile hit rate down to under 3% while they can drive a packet of missiles wherever they please. Oh, and despite the largest naval losses in history at 1st manticore, and oyster bay, the RMN is still pumping units out to the point where a few squadrons of Nikes represent a marginal loss of combat power. Besides writing how tragic it is, I fail to see the issue?

Okay, this part irks me. There wasn't just one Nike left; there are dozens of them deployed elsewhere. We know for certain at least two squadrons of them - probably more - are in 10th fleet alone.

The point was that there was supposed to be a squadron deployed to Hypatia and only one of that squadron survived.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

GloriousRuse wrote:C) One Nike left. And the RMN has steamrolled everyone anyhow. And maintained enough light units to patrol their new empire. And even their older heavy cruisers are sufficient to drive the next competing powers missile hit rate down to under 3% while they can drive a packet of missiles wherever they please. Oh, and despite the largest naval losses in history at 1st manticore, and oyster bay, the RMN is still pumping units out to the point where a few squadrons of Nikes represent a marginal loss of combat power. Besides writing how tragic it is, I fail to see the issue?

Okay, this part irks me. There wasn't just one Nike left; there are dozens of them deployed elsewhere. We know for certain at least two squadrons of them - probably more - are in 10th fleet alone.

The point was that there was supposed to be a squadron deployed to Hypatia and only one of that squadron survived.

Right, we have a hard count on 18 completed and deployed Nikes - it is possible that as many as 4 squadrons were sent to Silesia. Silesia was getting a 2:1 of new Mk 16 tube combatants compared to Talbott before the Solarian threat surfaced, then a planned 1:2 ratio afterwards up until OB threw everything out of wack.

Also, we don't know if more Nikes were deployed with 8th fleet to Bolster the original Nike, who stayed with 8th fleet when Oversteegen transferred to 10th Fleet with his new Nikes.

Galactic Sapper wrote:

GloriousRuse wrote:C) One Nike left. And the RMN has steamrolled everyone anyhow. And maintained enough light units to patrol their new empire. And even their older heavy cruisers are sufficient to drive the next competing powers missile hit rate down to under 3% while they can drive a packet of missiles wherever they please. Oh, and despite the largest naval losses in history at 1st manticore, and oyster bay, the RMN is still pumping units out to the point where a few squadrons of Nikes represent a marginal loss of combat power. Besides writing how tragic it is, I fail to see the issue?

Okay, this part irks me. There wasn't just one Nike left; there are dozens of them deployed elsewhere. We know for certain at least two squadrons of them - probably more - are in 10th fleet alone.

The point was that there was supposed to be a squadron deployed to Hypatia and only one of that squadron survived.

Theemile wrote:Right, we have a hard count on 18 completed and deployed Nikes - it is possible that as many as 4 squadrons were sent to Silesia. Silesia was getting a 2:1 of new Mk 16 tube combatants compared to Talbott before the Solarian threat surfaced, then a planned 1:2 ratio afterwards up until OB threw everything out of wack.

Also, we don't know if more Nikes were deployed with 8th fleet to Bolster the original Nike, who stayed with 8th fleet when Oversteegen transferred to 10th Fleet with his new Nikes.

Incorrect numbers on the Nike is totally my fault. I digested a certain passage in UH incorrectly, which has been clarified by Galactic Sapper. I thought it sounded odd as well, which is the reason behind my "?" at the end of it upstream. Again, my bad.

GloriousRuse wrote:@ Weighed the Schrodinger Dice (Possible Cat)

While an interesting economist article, it unfortunately doesn’t reflect the author mandated scale of orbital infrastructure relative to the investments available. The bounce it reflects are typically in fairly minimal (relative to the overall investing party) repair efforts that cause forced modernization, not in fully catastrophic events - particularly in government driven industries. For example, the Chinese lost a major state oil refinery (older, with refurbs to accept increased light/sweet coming out of the ME) to an earth quake three years back. Given the straights of malacca, ensuring potential energy independence long enough to conclude a moderate length war with the US is a major Chinese internal strategic goal. Suffice to say that despite their best efforts and a massive gov/quasi-gov-corps investments, the loss of refining capacity has been a substantial hindrance, not a bounce, to their production goals.

Haiti might be another example - though they argue an evac would have helped - the simple answer is there is no one who can/will flush the cash on a sufficient scale to recover. They aren’t bouncing back modern; they are still substantially materially worse than they were eight years ago.

Perhaps a better example would be the Marshall plan - rebuilding West Germany was not a quick bounce to modernization investment opportunity; it was a literal decade plus of work with vast, Governmental level sums of money being thrown in with no expected material ROI, just a political one.

So, I don’t think either the Manties post OB or Sol post nemesis - given the author has stayed the orbital infrastructure lost literally represents generations of effort - is going to get a “rebuild better” bounce that we see in efficiently managed disasters that are small scale compared to the owning State.

And those are really the

Sol's industry is a small amount of damage relative to the Solarian League as a whole. Maybe a couple of percents. And Sol likely can get rather nice deals from everyone. That's assuming they just don't make insurance companies payout.


Manticore is more in doubt. Assuming they don't get sanctioned and embargoed too badly the amoral transtellars will find someway to invest. (Worst case scenario, Darius goes planet busting.) They lost all those people and institutional knowledge though, so they are in a worse spot.

cthia wrote:Yet, the Star Kingdom wasn't made in a few books beginning after book 11. To understand the inexorable momentum gained would require studying the seeds of goodwill she planted and the goodwill she accumulated in return, which would require the beginning of the series with King Roger. The Star Kingdom is a complicated gal. Perhaps books 1 - 10 was like building the foundation on a construction site. It takes forever to come up out of the ground, but once the foundation is complete, the rest is a cruise.

Consider that Grayson may not have chosen to align itself with the Star Kingdom hadn't the Star Kingdom's reputation preceded her.

First, that doesn't make anything better. There is a reason in stories that involve the protagonists ramping up in power face more powerful enemies.

Second maybe don't have stuff keep breaking Manticore's way. Haven? Get's jammed up by mucking up their hyper-navigation. Honor? Nearly perfect despite going through that super dangerous resonance. Then Haven decides to help Manticore re-industrialize when its people are much, much poorer than Manticore? And a bunch of systems that had their industry trashed by Manticore? But no, they are going to spare stuff for Manticore. Manticore invades how many neutral systems and not one tries to launch a MAD-style strike on Manticore? (Although to be fair, it would probably take multiple years to hit home. Another reason why Darius should go planet busting.) Beowulf provides rebuilding assistance to the enemy star nation that just declared war on Beowulf?!?

Then there is the idiot-ball grafting that happens. Haven not jumping its ships out when missiles are incoming? It got really bad in UH. One of the early battles, when the Solies were trying to push Manticore off a wormhole, the Solies didn't decide to leave say... a dozen ships in hyper-space to ambush the Manticore ships when they hyper-out. Very similar complaint for the defense of Sol. They stick their ships down in the hyper-limit? Really? Not say in hyper-space where they could just float "over" the Manticore ships and ambush Honor when she hypers out to dodge missiles? Honor's tactics should have resulted her fleet getting in energy range of everything battle fleet had. Not programming missiles to know how to deal with an impeller wedge? Also since when could ships go from a down, but ready wedge to a wedge that blocks missiles in a few seconds? The Solarians deciding that no, they won't bother trying to get anything useful out of Beowulf while its still a member of the Solarian League.

Why didn't Sol just say "We quit the Solarian League! All foreign ships, strike your wedges now or be declared pirates! By the power invested in us by the UN your colonial charter is revoked. Any aggressive action will result in elimination of your colony by automatic weapon systems! We sold Mesa the stealth missiles they used after you nuked their civilians! We have automated stealth missile ships under AI control. Enough to slag every world within a thousand light years!"? Sure it might all be a big ass bluff, but who calls it? Plus even if you call that sort of bluff, it would mean Darius has a perfect patsy when they go for massive EE violations.




Also Manticore started out pretty equal to Haven in all honesty, since they had stuff like:
1) The junction and a magical economy that is somehow the banking center of the galaxy yet, somehow doesn't get them a large amount of attention and espionage. Compared to Haven's crumbling economy run by people who can't figure out how tribute works.
2) Tree kitties. Magic psychic cats in a universe with no other psychic powers and are somehow resistant to the bad guys cloning them for study.
3) Best friends with Beowulf which is effectively system that has been colonized longer than anyone else, since Sol basically was trashed and essentially recolonized.
4) The grav baffle which let them make their duel drive missiles because apparently humanity completely forgot how to make an armed drone.
5) The precursor to the FTL comms because humanity apparently forgot about waggle dances.
6) An industrial base which while a little smaller than Haven.
7) Fairly large general tech advantage.

Which all together makes this less David and Goliath and more, girl with knife vs sumo guy. Which is fine

quite possibly a cat wrote:Then Haven decides to help Manticore re-industrialize when its people are much, much poorer than Manticore? And a bunch of systems that had their industry trashed by Manticore? But no, they are going to spare stuff for Manticore. Manticore invades how many neutral systems and not one tries to launch a MAD-style strike on Manticore? (Although to be fair, it would probably take multiple years to hit home. Another reason why Darius should go planet busting.) Beowulf provides rebuilding assistance to the enemy star nation that just declared war on Beowulf?!?

Manticore did declare war on the Solarian League; but NOT on Beowulf, which has closer ties to Manticore than to Sol and has announced that they are leaving the League.

The main help Haven gave to Manticore's rebuilding was the return of captured personnel. Haven can expect major technology transfers for anything else it does. That was already happening before UH. When you mention systems with industry trashed, I assume you are talking about those belonging to Haven, which stand to benefit under the new arrangement.

Who are the neutral systems that you have Manticore invading? Most of the ones I have read about are controlled by the OFS and interstellar corporations. Monica may have been technically neutral, but had entered into a secret agreement with OFS and the Malign. The other is Mesa, which had been the headquarters of the Malign.

You love talking about planet busting and MAD-style strikes; but it was not that many months ago that you were stating as a fact that the Eridani Edict prevented any such thing from happening. That planets with big military forces could run roughshod over weaker planets, because the Edict prevented any such response.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Why didn't Sol just say "We quit the Solarian League! All foreign ships, strike your wedges now or be declared pirates! By the power invested in us by the UN your colonial charter is revoked.

What is this mess of words even supposed to mean? What colonial charters (possibly the original purchase agreement with the exploratory company, which is not really a colony charter)? In what way would Sol have power invested to revoke them? Isn't it a little late to try to quit the League after the adversary controls the high orbitals? Also if they quit the League, wouldn't they be the only one trying to declare as pirates those ships that control their high orbitals?

tlb wrote:The main help Haven gave to Manticore's rebuilding was the return of captured personnel. Haven can expect major technology transfers for anything else it does. That was already happening before UH. When you mention systems with industry trashed, I assume you are talking about those belonging to Haven, which stand to benefit under the new arrangement.

He's referring to the systems 8th fleet trashed in the Cutworm/Sanskrit missions in AAC. Manticore did crush the industrial capacity of 8(?) Havenite systems.

Who are the neutral systems that you have Manticore invading? Most of the ones I have read about are controlled by the OFS and interstellar corporations. Monica may have been technically neutral, but had entered into a secret agreement with OFS and the Malign. The other is Mesa, which had been the headquarters of the Malign.

He's referring to taking over wormholes, which doesn't actually count as invasion. Wormhole termini are generally far beyond the territorial limit of a system (which iirc is 12 light minutes from the hyper limit). It's still an attack since the traffic control platforms are owned and manned by those systems.

GloriousRuse wrote:In three basic responses here: I am generally talking about the main line books, as those tend to be the ones most responsible for defining the universe (beyond the malign introduction)...though I’d consider any off-shoot of sufficient severity.


1) The “Setbacks” have no actual consequence, they merely create the mask of one.

A) Eliazabeth is on the throne. And the incoming government and change of monarch caused transition problems, a shake out of the court based on the re-aligning favor, her inexperience showing through in the operation of her duties, and public and foreign confidence in the new leader required time and effort...which president was it that said it really takes a year before you even know where the bathrooms in the whitehouse are?

But, no, not actually. None of that happened. Instead, we get a perfect continuation of government from a character who is virtually a carbon copy of her predecessor. And then an extraordinarily successful round of foreign affairs that she helps spearhead. Not really a setback is it?

B) Oyster bay. Yes, the numbers are large, and much writing goes into decrying just how awful it is. Funnily enough, the SEM doesn’t suffer in the slightest. There is no drop in combat readiness. The economy tools along just fine. The entire industrial base is transferred to a foreign power seamlessly. Literally in the same book that we are being told Buccaneer has effectively knocked neutral systems back decades, centuries, we’re hearing “don’t worry, our recovery estimates say six months”...and we’re still magically rich too!”.

No actual setback occurred.

C) One Nike left. And the RMN has steamrolled everyone anyhow. And maintained enough light units to patrol their new empire. And even their older heavy cruisers are sufficient to drive the next competing powers missile hit rate down to under 3% while they can drive a packet of missiles wherever they please. Oh, and despite the largest naval losses in history at 1st manticore, and oyster bay, the RMN is still pumping units out to the point where a few squadrons of Nikes represent a marginal loss of combat power. Besides writing how tragic it is, I fail to see the issue?

D) Treecats. The vaunted treecat genocide ends with the SEM getting free nano-tech identifying telepath bodyguards for everyone. This is a setback?

E) Tricked into going to war...which has left them as the reigning super-power in the Universe. And has yet to have a consequenced effect of any scale beyond “I’m killing some people so we can feel righteous”. Practically zero tactical losses. OB has effectively been ignored. Lacoon cutting both ways because the SL was the manties biggest potential trade market? Of course not!

It all adds up to the equivalent of writing “and then Rocky got punched in the face really hard, so hard that the evil scientists said it was many Newton’s more than anyone had ever been punched, but he was Rocky so his noble chin did not so much as waver, his eye did not black, and he was filled by the cold steely vengeance of the morally upstanding after briefly thinking of Adrienne. He then knocked his opponent senseless with one jab”


2) Of Reaping and Sowing - TO BE CONTINUED

Much of the above just is not really so.

Elizabeth took over at a time of "peace." Her father's assassination was done in hopes she would stop building up the navy. The fact that she found out that Haven was responsible for his death ALTHOUGH SHE COULDN'T SAY THAT was a damn good reason for building the navy.

By the time of the war actually breaking out, which was at The Short Victorious War, she had been around for more years than American Presidents get. She was not new to all of this and her Prime Minister was very capable.

Also, there was a great deal of discussion about losses from Oyster Bay. But this was a factor to be dealt with down the line. There were still hundreds of ships around and they were almost all far superior to their Solarian equivalents. Note that destroyers took out a battle cruiser and cruisers did all the damage at Spindle.

As for transfer of tech, they were moving from advanced economy to another. The infrastructure was more or less in place.

Actually, there was only one Nike. Of course, there were a lot of Nike CLASS ships.

What should the treecats have done? The Sollies would have ignored the whole thing...except for MAlign which would have been doing dissections.

There were setbacks but they overcame them. That's why they are the central heroes of the whole series. Perhaps some people would prefer writing books where MAlign becomes the hero. Some great books about racial superiority, breeding supermen and women, wiping out whole civilizations. Oops, that's been done by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.

ldwechsler wrote:
There were setbacks but they overcame them. That's why they are the central heroes of the whole series.

Except for they did not overcome anything. They got free chicken from the Author, and the explanation is nothing more than "they are noble, and good, and smart so though it was tragic - so tragic it has yet to have one actual identifiable consequence other than being "tragic"- everything is ok. The Manties are the best at everything ever. The end."

--------------

As an aside, can we all agree that no one here is actually poorly informed enough to believe an "advanced economy" means the moment someone sends you a blueprint you are off to the races?

Observe the following:

Ford Re-tooling a F150 plant...from steel frame to aluminum.

In 2013 Ford decided to re-tool an existing F150 plant to build the same venerable platform, just with an aluminium frame. After a year of planning, with the plant, workforce, supply chains staying stable (the aluminium supply chain was pre-established to avoid down time), and all of the materials, tools, and so forth pre-emplaced, they began work in 2014. The plant was only down for two months. This was considered an achievement worth covering in Popular Mechanics.

Manty plans arrive at Beowulf? "No worries bro, we just hit this "Make Missiles" button on the assembly line. It's coo."


Licensed Production of the F16. Japan and South Korea, two very "advanced economies" decided to buy licensing rights to produce local F16 variants. This started in the late 80's. Both of them managed to start production by the mid 90's.

The Japanese F-2 (Mitsuibishi made F16 variant) entered service in 2000. The plant had started production in 1996.

The first KF16 rolled out of a Samsung plant in 1997, six years after the government decided to produce them and not an F-18 variant.

Beowulf? "Don't worry brah, we've seen missiles. No way a relativistic speed travelling pile of fusion reactors, electronics, and nuclear warheads can be TOO hard to make. We cna start TODAY!"