Notes from Weber--SPOILER WARNING!!!

OrlandoNative wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:small, deliverable by Sharks, and as far as we know Beowulf has nothing like the exquisitely sensitive scanner arrays that guard both Haven and Manticore, so a Shark squadron may not even be detected exiting hyper at a few light -weeks.

There's not much point in having a system defense fleet (as Beowulf does with the BSDF) without having sufficiently good detectors to allow you to get prepared to repulse an otherwise unexpected attack. Since Beowulf's level of technology is closer to that of Manticore's than probably any other SL member; I seriously doubt their sensor net isn't fairly sophisticated. Even if it wasn't at some point in the past, I suspect it got a fairly good upgrade *recently* after the Yawata strike. Remember, these folks have opposed Mesa for generations; and while they may have never *expected* an outright attack, prudent planning covers your opponent's contingencies. Surely they would have tried to make it difficult for Mesa to insert spies and potential saboteurs into the system via small, stealthed ships, and that would tend to require very sensitive sensor arrays.

I could see the Sollies *in general* ignoring such precautions, but the Beowulfer's seem to be a bit more alert.

While I generally agree with you, any spying would be done employing normal travel and communication channels. The last thing you want to do as a spy is call attention to yourself by arriving clandestinely. Even our dynamic duo used "normal" commercial channels getting off Mesa with their intel cargo.

hitting erewhon to try and get something close to manty tech?

intresting idea.

Now that you've mentioned it I can see the appeal to the SLN but I can see problems

as others have said the "Not invented here so doesn't exist" faction is in retreat but i doubt they are gone and Erewhon was a pretty minor player in the first war, so they may not believe that they were given much manty tech. especially with reports coming out of maya sector that are all about how much personnel they are loaning to man ships.

If they do attack they'll get hurt almost as badly as when they tried to take Manticore. Eerewhon sold arsenal ships to Maya sector. you think they haven't built any for themselves? also they had some BC (P)s due for delivery to maya soon. I repeat if they have at least a couple for sale you think they don't have any of their own, at least under construction, if not on patrol?

finally, they mgiht not have BC(P) or SD(P) or arsenal ships of their own (though again I would expect at least a couple of the first and last) but they can build MDM pods and will probably have at least a couple of hundred in place as system defence pods in the vicinity of their shipyards and the planet itself.

it might not be as ugly as going after a many or havenite system but it would be still be very ugly. that doesn't go into if Maya sector might help in defence and we know for a fact that they still have at least one arsenal ship left which could probably take out a 100 SLN SDs with out help from any system defence pods.

Somtaaw wrote:

kzt wrote:If I was running the SLN, I'd hit Erewhon. It is probably the most accessible and least well defended system that has access to much of the RMN tech.

That's a good point, and the Mandarins never care about anything except "Core World" thoughts, people in the Verge and Shell just don't matter to them.

So Maya peddling shipyards and such, to tie strings to Erewhon, the Mandarins would simply shrug it off. Maya might be powerful for a non-Core sector, but it isn't powerful enough for them to care if they piss of Barregos.

The whole public logic would have been something along the lines of. "Who cares what the Erewhonese thinks. Everybody knows they were with Manticore, after they left us. Then they left Manticore to join up with Haven. Haven actively shot at our ships, that made Erewhon a legitimate military target."
Unspoken "and they have both sides near latest technology for us to plunder and steal so we don't keep getting massacred."

And then, if successful attack, most likely Sepoy gets the lid blown off, because what Barregos reported he was buying/investing in, would be revealed by the wrecked ships and anything still in building slips.

Perhaps a thought. But considering that Erewhon *does* have that mutual defense treaty with Haven, and, even if they don't have a *lot* of ships, the ones they have would obviously be of the same caliber as Haven's; it would seem silly for the SLN to attack at this point and risk retaliation. Plus they no doubt have system defense pods left over from when they were part of the original Mantecoran Alliance. The Sollies are worried enough about the Beowulf terminus, as it is. Erewhon is effectively neutral *until* the SLN attacks Haven or themselves. Opening a wide-open, multi-sided war isn't the kind of thing any strategist with the brains of a flatworm would want to do. It's at least possible that even a Solly would know that.

And in any case, if the SLN did attack Erewhon, I suspect they'd do the same thing that happened at Grendelsbane... ...namely just destroy the shipyards that manufacture and use the military technology before the Sollies could get their hands on it if it looked like the Sollies might win in the first place.

n7axw wrote:First, there is no reason to believe that Tsang's fleet didn't originate from Mars. That fleet base is huge and has both lots of active wallers and a large number of mothballed SDs. She could have easily assembled her fleet there.

Don

The problem is that there's no reason to believe Tsang's fleet originated at *any* particular place. RFC never said where Tsang's fleet came from. It could have come from *any* SLN base anywhere in the core, or, even, from the shell, if one there was closer to Beowulf than any in the core. Or various elements could have come from different places and just met up prior to continuing on to Beowulf. We just don't know. Stating "She came from Mars" under those circumstances - without a shred of corroboration - is mere speculation.

One could just as easily speculate that those ships had been accumulating for a while near Beowulf, just in case hostilities with Manticore had reached such a point that the GA sent an attack squadron through the terminus to invade some of the core worlds; and just decided to "repurpose" that force when they decided to send in Filereta.

Even the fleet Filereta led didn't come from one source; he may have brought the bulk of it from somewhere else, but other ships trickled in from nearby deployments as well.

OrlandoNative wrote:Perhaps a thought. But considering that Erewhon *does* have that mutual defense treaty with Haven, and, even if they don't have a *lot* of ships, the ones they have would obviously be of the same caliber as Haven's; it would seem silly for the SLN to attack at this point and risk retaliation. Plus they no doubt have system defense pods left over from when they were part of the original Mantecoran Alliance. The Sollies are worried enough about the Beowulf terminus, as it is. Erewhon is effectively neutral *until* the SLN attacks Haven or themselves. Opening a wide-open, multi-sided war isn't the kind of thing any strategist with the brains of a flatworm would want to do. It's at least possible that even a Solly would know that.

And in any case, if the SLN did attack Erewhon, I suspect they'd do the same thing that happened at Grendelsbane... ...namely just destroy the shipyards that manufacture and use the military technology before the Sollies could get their hands on it if it looked like the Sollies might win in the first place.

I'm not sure Erewhon was part of Manticore's shift to system defense pods. They'd signed over to Haven during the Peace Talks with the High Ridge Government.

And it wouldn't be a multi-sided war, because the Republic of Haven and Manticore have already all but declared war against the Solarian League, because of their arrogance in carrying through with Raging Justice. If the SLN attacks Erewhon, they piss off Haven, who's already declared war.

If the attack fails, the Grand Alliance still has to station units there to ensure a later followup doesn't succeed, and Erewhon basically turns into a Zanzibar. Constantly asking for bigger, and larger defense fleets, because they keep getting attacked.

If the attack succeeds, the Solarian Navy basically steals everything that isn't nailed down, and purged, and runs for it to bring that back to their R&D departments. Basically a large smash-and-grab, which also lets them point to the battle and say "see? We can win battles, just give us some time and this mightily called Grand Alliance will also be smashed apart."

jgnfld wrote:While I generally agree with you, any spying would be done employing normal travel and communication channels. The last thing you want to do as a spy is call attention to yourself by arriving clandestinely. Even our dynamic duo used "normal" commercial channels getting off Mesa with their intel cargo.

Actually they didn't. The ship they used was purpose-renovated; it was *posing* as a "normal commercial vessel" even though it wasn't actually one.

As for your point about calling attention, that's certainly true, but a clandestine insertion only calls attention *if it's discovered*. Which is exactly what it's designed *not* to have happen.

Of course, nothing is certain or perfect. I'm sure the slaver freighter whose detaining led to the battle of Monica wasn't expecting to be found, boarded, and searched either; but it was.

Somtaaw wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:Perhaps a thought. But considering that Erewhon *does* have that mutual defense treaty with Haven, and, even if they don't have a *lot* of ships, the ones they have would obviously be of the same caliber as Haven's; it would seem silly for the SLN to attack at this point and risk retaliation. Plus they no doubt have system defense pods left over from when they were part of the original Mantecoran Alliance. The Sollies are worried enough about the Beowulf terminus, as it is. Erewhon is effectively neutral *until* the SLN attacks Haven or themselves. Opening a wide-open, multi-sided war isn't the kind of thing any strategist with the brains of a flatworm would want to do. It's at least possible that even a Solly would know that.

And in any case, if the SLN did attack Erewhon, I suspect they'd do the same thing that happened at Grendelsbane... ...namely just destroy the shipyards that manufacture and use the military technology before the Sollies could get their hands on it if it looked like the Sollies might win in the first place.

I'm not sure Erewhon was part of Manticore's shift to system defense pods. They'd signed over to Haven during the Peace Talks with the High Ridge Government.

And it wouldn't be a multi-sided war, because the Republic of Haven and Manticore have already all but declared war against the Solarian League, because of their arrogance in carrying through with Raging Justice. If the SLN attacks Erewhon, they piss off Haven, who's already declared war.

If the attack fails, the Grand Alliance still has to station units there to ensure a later followup doesn't succeed, and Erewhon basically turns into a Zanzibar. Constantly asking for bigger, and larger defense fleets, because they keep getting attacked.

If the attack succeeds, the Solarian Navy basically steals everything that isn't nailed down, and purged, and runs for it to bring that back to their R&D departments. Basically a large smash-and-grab, which also lets them point to the battle and say "see? We can win battles, just give us some time and this mightily called Grand Alliance will also be smashed apart."

Erewhon and Zanzibar aren't in the same class. Zanzibar never had the same capability as Erewhon as far as shipbuilding went. They were only capable of building lighter units like destroyers and cruisers. Erewhon could (and did) build SD's. Pod capable SD's. While it's explicitly stated when APOLLO system defense pods were introduced, I don't recall any particular note as to if/when *ordinary* pods were. We know the Havenites had them when the Manties launched Cutworm. And the Manties had them in Zanzibar and elsewhere prior to the last attack there. While it's speculation, it's reasonable to conclude that Erewhon has system defense pods deployed as well. Just not on the same class as Apollo pods, though.

The point, though, is that while a state of war between the SL and the GA (currently not explicitly including Erewhon) defacto exists due to Operation Raging Justice; Haven and Manticore haven't actually officially begun offensive operations against the League in general... ...well, outside of Meyers and the Madras sector; but the League doesn't know about that yet, since no hyper capable units made it out to tell them. I can't see them wanting to add yet another star nation to the list of "hostiles". Right now, Erewhon is essentually neutral. Attacking them would almost certainly change that.

Another point is it's unclear that Erewhon is a single star system political entity. It's never really explicitly said. But we *do* know that Erewhonese ships apparently patrol *other* star systems. So it's possible that the ships Erewhon builds for Maya aren't even built in the Erewhon system itself; but perhaps some other system dedicated to military infrastructure. We just don't know.

kzt wrote:If I was running the SLN, I'd hit Erewhon. It is probably the most accessible and least well defended system that has access to much of the RMN tech.

I wonder if that is where Tsang's fleet went to?

The mandarins were taking the position that Beowulf was a liability that would allow the GA access to the core, the WH from Erewhon would allow access to the core as well, in their twisted minds the same reasoning could be used to send Tsang's fleet to Erewhon.

(edit, but then they would not have been wondering where Tsang was, so maybe it was Ramprajet(splg) who sent her off, if indeed that is where she went.)

"Least well defended system with access to RMN tech"
still leaves room for very strong defenses!
Erewhon has not been neglecting their defenses.
Remember that they sent no ships on the Verdant Vista
mission, or later to help defend Torch, because they
were keeping their wall (and their lesser ships)
home to defend themselves.

Says here that even a large Solly fleet gets beaten
by Erewhon's defenses. Says further that a fleet as
large as Tsang's does not get sent so far from Sol,
(way out into the Verge!),
and especially not when they just had their Tech's
inferiority rubbed in their faces!

I doubt that her fleet was dispersed. I 'spect it is
somewhere between Beowulf and Sol.

HTM

George J. Smith wrote:

kzt wrote:If I was running the SLN, I'd hit Erewhon. It is probably the most accessible and least well defended system that has access to much of the RMN tech.

I wonder if that is where Tsang's fleet went to?

The mandarins were taking the position that Beowulf was a liability that would allow the GA access to the core, the WH from Erewhon would allow access to the core as well, in their twisted minds the same reasoning could be used to send Tsang's fleet to Erewhon.

(edit, but then they would not have been wondering where Tsang was, so maybe it was Rampajet(splg) who sent her off, if indeed that is where she went.)

OrlandoNative wrote:

n7axw wrote:First, there is no reason to believe that Tsang's fleet didn't originate from Mars. That fleet base is huge and has both lots of active wallers and a large number of mothballed SDs. She could have easily assembled her fleet there.

Don

The problem is that there's no reason to believe Tsang's fleet originated at *any* particular place. RFC never said where Tsang's fleet came from. It could have come from *any* SLN base anywhere in the core, or, even, from the shell, if one there was closer to Beowulf than any in the core. Or various elements could have come from different places and just met up prior to continuing on to Beowulf. We just don't know. Stating "She came from Mars" under those circumstances - without a shred of corroboration - is mere speculation.

One could just as easily speculate that those ships had been accumulating for a while near Beowulf, just in case hostilities with Manticore had reached such a point that the GA sent an attack squadron through the terminus to invade some of the core worlds; and just decided to "repurpose" that force when they decided to send in Filereta.

Even the fleet Filereta led didn't come from one source; he may have brought the bulk of it from somewhere else, but other ships trickled in from nearby deployments as well.

Indeed, there is textev that Filareta started out with about half the ships he had(perhaps a bit less) and the rest were reinforcements which arrived before he departed.

Nevertheless, textev also indicates that the SLN has six depots in addition to the Mars base, for seven total. My speculation is that Battle Fleet only has those seven major bases with the vast majority of their active fleet AND Reserve split amongst them, less any training cruises or flag-showing deployments, and all of the other six are within the League Core.

As for Frontier Fleet, I don't know whether they share BF's facilities or have their own major bases at separate locations. They probably have dozens of minor facilities around the periphery(one might be Tasmania).

Back to Tsang, there are a few compelling reasons why she would have come from Sol. The first being that Sol is only 2 weeks away from Beowulf and is also the end-point of the SLN's chain of command(eg, any orders from the CNO would be more quickly delivered to forces stationed in Sol rather than forces stationed elsewhere).

Tsang's force was probably rendezvoused at a barren star near Beowulf and made up of squadrons drawn from the closest SLN bases. I find it hard to believe there could be more than two or three of the other fleet bases as close.

We didn't see characters from any of Tsang's other ships, so this is pure speculation, but given how political the SLN is, any flag officer with a chunk of the Sol Home Fleet is going to be significantly more senior than any other flag officer stuck at one of the lesser half-dozen bases. So Tsang came from Sol with at least a squadron, perhaps up to three(if not all of them!), of her 100 wallers.

OrlandoNative wrote:Another point is it's unclear that Erewhon is a single star system political entity. It's never really explicitly said. But we *do* know that Erewhonese ships apparently patrol *other* star systems. So it's possible that the ships Erewhon builds for Maya aren't even built in the Erewhon system itself; but perhaps some other system dedicated to military infrastructure. We just don't know.

It is a single system republic. Think of Erewhon as a less rich version of Manticore, with Terra Haute reprising the role of Lynx(had it been found earlier) - an uninhabitable system they planted their flag in. And then remember owning a multi-termini junction elevates a system's income to the top 50 in the colonised universe.

Like Manticore, Erewhon has its own merchants taking advantage of lower tariffs through their own wormhole and thus developed a need for commerce protection and other naval capabilities.

As for those capabilities - they have everything as of shortly after Buttercup. It makes little difference to the SLN whether the MDMs fired at them are capacitor birds or Apollo-guided and microfusion-powered.