Why don't they just give up?

Brigade XO wrote:Something else that bothers me about Galton is that with it's incredible fleet of SD, all those forts and massive industrialization, it really hasn't seemed to have made an impact - that we have been told about - other than providing equipment and weapons for the PRHN in Exile and the massive number of Cataprhacts provided to Fillerta. ---and on the side of that, what happened to that second SLN fleet of a size of Filler's that was gathered in a separate place and you might presume they would get a similar delivery of "updated" missiles.

We had Darius and it's the Secret Lair of the Alignment. It does have a significant industrialized component and is building the LDs plus, apparently the Ghosts and whatever other Spider Drive ships that are planned. I would be reasonable to think that Darius is also the source of the Streak Drive ships as that would be a very bad thing to let some non-Alignment shipyard have the specs and designs for. Oh, they could actually buy all sorts of what is basically SL level tech parts and gear and copy the metallurgy for hulls but the Streak Drivers and the actual construction are too sensitive to be shopped out anywhere.
But other than that military-industrial complex that is Galton making weapons and military systems plus turning out a population which is probably based on the same "tubing" technology that both Manpower (etc) of Mesa and Darius use, what have they been making?
And where is all that stuff they would have been making?
If Galton could be expected to serve as a foil and semi believable opponent for the RF at the point (in The Plan) where the SLN and PRHN have been smashing systems in the conflict the Alignment was going to provoke , where are the CONVENTIONAL ships? Of whatever recognizable design variants that could be attributed to some new power that just happens to burst on the scene with the fall of the SL?
Heck, the Alignment could have even stolen Havenite designs (from before the war with Manticore) and built ships that looked like and SCANNED LIKE RHN warships and used them to do the EE stuff. But there is nothing like that.

Questions, always questions.

I thought that most of the PRHN ships were ones with which they escaped from Haven when St. Just died.

I believe that Galton also has the streak drive, because we are told that only the spider drive has been withheld and the streak drive was from long before Houdini.

I do not know whether Galton was something the Author always planned or something thrown in after Zilwicki and Cachet messed up the original timeline that had Honor die in the Battle against Haven at Manticore. I hope we find out more explanatory material in the next book.

Brigade XO wrote:Something else that bothers me about Galton is that with it's incredible fleet of SD, all those forts and massive industrialization, it really hasn't seemed to have made an impact - that we have been told about - other than providing equipment and weapons for the PRHN in Exile and the massive number of Cataprhacts provided to Fillerta. ---and on the side of that, what happened to that second SLN fleet of a size of Filler's that was gathered in a separate place and you might presume they would get a similar delivery of "updated" missiles.

In-universe, the story is that they hadn't been needed yet. The purpose of Galton was to serve the eugenics programme, which wasn't ready. We don't talk a lot about this because the discussions in the forum stick to the military aspects and sometimes to the politics, but the Plan's selling point to the Alignment masses, up and down, in and out of the onion, was to uplift humanity. Very few people, even zealots, would be supporting the Detweilers and Inner Circle if they were told the objective is to let those rule Humanity.

So the chaos to be caused by the Galton Fleet and the conflict between the SL and PRH wasn't meant to start until the genetics programme had achieved sufficient success. What that level is, we don't know, but it apparently had done so by the time Albrecht met with the leadership of the RF member worlds.

Out-of-universe, this is a sign Galton was a retcon / retrofit.

But other than that military-industrial complex that is Galton making weapons and military systems plus turning out a population which is probably based on the same "tubing" technology that both Manpower (etc) of Mesa and Darius use, what have they been making?
And where is all that stuff they would have been making?

Good questions. The fact that the majority of the Houdini population was sent to Galton, not Darius, tells us that there was a lot of research & development being done there. They did manage to reverse engineer an MDM sufficiently to produce the Cataphract, for example. We were discussing in the other thread the fact that those have solved the challenges that Travis Long mentioned in ACTD and yet they don't use a baffle. This means it was a radical engineering update. In fact, when Lisa is thinking about the defence of System Alpha, she does ponder on the fact that missiles have more than 3x the range they used to and have effectively unlimited powered range (notwithstanding the ballistic phase).

The Alliance didn't unveil the MDMs and SD(P)s until Operation Buttercup, in 1915 PD. Given the lead times to get the intel to Galton and the fact that Haven stopped the covert relationship with the SL companies soon thereafter, the development of the Cataphract in the time it did is actually very impressive.

And then there's the streak drive: all signs point to it having been developed in Galton too.

If Galton could be expected to serve as a foil and semi believable opponent for the RF at the point (in The Plan) where the SLN and PRHN have been smashing systems in the conflict the Alignment was going to provoke , where are the CONVENTIONAL ships? Of whatever recognizable design variants that could be attributed to some new power that just happens to burst on the scene with the fall of the SL?

ALL the Galton ships are conventional.

Or do you mean that they identifiably different from the SLN and PN ships?

That's a good question. Likely, they had a plan to steal some SLN ships from the Reserves and use those as false flag operations. They just hadn't yet because there had been no need and doing so early would lead to a longer time in which someone may notice the ships missing. Plus, they didn't want to be stuck with outdated ships when the time did come.

Which is the other reason they had their own designs: they had to be ahead of the SLN and, until Theisman & Foraker upset the plan, the PN. They were keeping those two fleets tightly balanced, but in order to do that they had to understand all of the developments.

Heck, the Alignment could have even stolen Havenite designs (from before the war with Manticore) and built ships that looked like and SCANNED LIKE RHN warships and used them to do the EE stuff. But there is nothing like that.

They probably did have the full designs for the DuQuesne SD and other contemporary ships. At this time, the PN fielded ships built with SL-sourced components and technology. Theirs were better than the SLN because the Peeps actually used their ships so they knew a thing or two about what worked. Plus, as I said above, the MAlign would have an interest in keeping the PN ships qualitatively superior to the SLN's because the PN was quantitatively inferior.

Theisman inadvertently upset the cart by ditching the "SL help" when Foraker assumed control of the RHN's R&D and moved all new production to Bolthole. The help wasn't needed any more because they realised they had leapfrogged the SL technology anyway; the Bolthole change was to hide from the Alliance's spies, but it had the nice side effect of hiding from the MAlign's too.

tlb wrote:I believe that Galton also has the streak drive, because we are told that only the spider drive has been withheld and the streak drive was from long before Houdini.

It was also unclassified enough that Harahap was transported on streak-drive ships while stirring up trouble in the Talbott Cluster, even before he got to go to the Gamma Centre for his interview.

Did Bardasano or Anisimovna know about the spider-drive ships? As highly visible "Manpower" agents, they might not have, in case they were captured.

All signs point to Jessica Milliken knowing because her CO, Captain Gowan Maddock did know, but we're not sure.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:If Galton could be expected to serve as a foil and semi believable opponent for the RF at the point (in The Plan) where the SLN and PRHN have been smashing systems in the conflict the Alignment was going to provoke , where are the CONVENTIONAL ships? Of whatever recognizable design variants that could be attributed to some new power that just happens to burst on the scene with the fall of the SL?

ALL the Galton ships are conventional.

Or do you mean that they identifiably different from the SLN and PN ships?

I believe his point was that the only waller's Honor saw at Galton were SD(P)s. And as you pointed out with the timeline, it was unlikely that Galton started working on those until the RMN & GSN unveiled them during Buttercup.

So where were the conventional pre-pod SDs or DNs? Surely Galton's didn't build their navy from nothing in the last 8 years since the SD(P) concept was revealed. They've been there for centuries and supposedly the paranoid ultra-militaristic stalking horse of the MAlign. Even if only for system defense they should have long had a large and powerful navy (at least by normal single system standards) and thus centuries of evolving conventional (non-pod) waller designs.

And from the Onion's viewpoint they had certainly wanted Galton's navy to be ready in case the crisis between Haven and the League had unexpectedly kicked off early; anytime in the past few decades. So they should also have been pulling strings to encourage Galton into having a powerful (and trained up) navy.

So where did whatever navy predated 1914 go? Did they scrap them all as soon as they started laying down SD(P)s? Where they just not worth anybody giving them even the passing mention of the Galtonese SD(P)s?

Jonathan_S wrote:I believe his point was that the only waller's Honor saw at Galton were SD(P)s. And as you pointed out with the timeline, it was unlikely that Galton started working on those until the RMN & GSN unveiled them during Buttercup.

So where were the conventional pre-pod SDs or DNs? Surely Galton's didn't build their navy from nothing in the last 8 years since the SD(P) concept was revealed. They've been there for centuries and supposedly the paranoid ultra-militaristic stalking horse of the MAlign. Even if only for system defense they should have long had a large and powerful navy (at least by normal single system standards) and thus centuries of evolving conventional (non-pod) waller designs.

And from the Onion's viewpoint they had certainly wanted Galton's navy to be ready in case the crisis between Haven and the League had unexpectedly kicked off early; anytime in the past few decades. So they should also have been pulling strings to encourage Galton into having a powerful (and trained up) navy.

So where did whatever navy predated 1914 go? Did they scrap them all as soon as they started laying down SD(P)s? Where they just not worth anybody giving them even the passing mention of the Galtonese SD(P)s?

Actually, the majority of Galton's 50+ SDs were conventional, only 17 were Pod layers:

“I agree, Your Grace.” Megan Petersen stood beside Honor’s command chair, looking into the com display with her. “One bit of good news—we’ve managed to confirm that most of their superdreadnoughts are pre-pod designs. Looks like they’ve got about three classes, so I’m guessing all of them were experimental. Or developmental, anyway. We’ve only IDed seventeen pod-layers, so far.”

Theemile wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I believe his point was that the only waller's Honor saw at Galton were SD(P)s. And as you pointed out with the timeline, it was unlikely that Galton started working on those until the RMN & GSN unveiled them during Buttercup.

So where were the conventional pre-pod SDs or DNs? Surely Galton's didn't build their navy from nothing in the last 8 years since the SD(P) concept was revealed. They've been there for centuries and supposedly the paranoid ultra-militaristic stalking horse of the MAlign. Even if only for system defense they should have long had a large and powerful navy (at least by normal single system standards) and thus centuries of evolving conventional (non-pod) waller designs.

And from the Onion's viewpoint they had certainly wanted Galton's navy to be ready in case the crisis between Haven and the League had unexpectedly kicked off early; anytime in the past few decades. So they should also have been pulling strings to encourage Galton into having a powerful (and trained up) navy.

So where did whatever navy predated 1914 go? Did they scrap them all as soon as they started laying down SD(P)s? Where they just not worth anybody giving them even the passing mention of the Galtonese SD(P)s?

Actually, the majority of Galton's 50+ SDs were conventional, only 17 were Pod layers:

“I agree, Your Grace.” Megan Petersen stood beside Honor’s command chair, looking into the com display with her. “One bit of good news—we’ve managed to confirm that most of their superdreadnoughts are pre-pod designs. Looks like they’ve got about three classes, so I’m guessing all of them were experimental. Or developmental, anyway. We’ve only IDed seventeen pod-layers, so far.”

Oops. Thanks for correcting my faulty memory

Brigade XO wrote:Something else that bothers me about Galton is that with it's incredible fleet of SD, all those forts and massive industrialization, it really hasn't seemed to have made an impact - that we have been told about -

We had Darius and it's the Secret Lair of the Alignment. It does have a significant industrialized component and is building the LDs plus, apparently the Ghosts and whatever other Spider Drive ships that are

But other than that military-industrial complex that is Galton making weapons and military systems plus turning out a population which is probably based on the same "tubing" technology that both Manpower (etc) of Mesa and Darius use, what have they been making?SNIP

Questions, always questions.

WAY back, in memory lane, Storm From the Shadows we are told of ~10+? star nations which comprise the Renaissance Factor. The most Notable is Mannerheim, Mesa, Visgoth, Warner, Yoldin(Technodyne) etc. Warner/Visgoth due to Proximity and WH Bridges. But, we are also told there are ~a dozen or so nations outside the SL which have SD's and decent fleets. We have only been told of the Haven sector nations which have them.

I do not think it is a small branch to stand on with a saw in my hand , to believe that nearly ALL nations outside the SL with SD's more than likely are in the Renaissance Factor since we know NOTHING about them and if you WERE the RF/MALIGN you surely would either co-opt those nations, or get them into a war/destabilize as was done with the Haven Sector.

We also know that Mannerheim has a BIG fleet. How new are the ships? How many ships does the rest of the RF have? I would assume quite a few if you were planning on taking out the SL after all. Someone has to step in. Also, with Jessyk and Kolatainos shipping lines in your pockets, surely you would be making civilian freighters left right and center if your base assumption was that the Manticoran fleet was going to effectively go extinct. If no cargo carrying capacity/trade--> you aren't taking over the SL. And of course pouring money into civilian goods manufacturing to put INTO those freighter hulls. All of which can mostly be hidden in plain sight.

How many other "boltholes" is the RF/MALIGN pouring money/effort into? Or just obvious ones built in the RF home systems? No reason to limit this to just Darius/Galton.

Plenty of mouths wanting resources. Galactic domination is an eternal resource pit. The good guys could probably make a good GUESS at who the bad guys are by simply looking at their economic infrastructure build out programs and put a HIGH probability of who are the bad guys.

Relax wrote:WAY back, in memory lane, Storm From the Shadows we are told of ~10+? star nations which comprise the Renaissance Factor. The most Notable is Mannerheim, Mesa, Visgoth, Warner, Yoldin(Technodyne) etc. Warner/Visgoth due to Proximity and WH Bridges. But, we are also told there are ~a dozen or so nations outside the SL which have SD's and decent fleets. We have only been told of the Haven sector nations which have them.

I do not think it is a small branch to stand on with a saw in my hand , to believe that nearly ALL nations outside the SL with SD's more than likely are in the Renaissance Factor since we know NOTHING about them and if you WERE the RF/MALIGN you surely would either co-opt those nations, or get them into a war/destabilize as was done with the Haven Sector.

We also know that Mannerheim has a BIG fleet. How new are the ships? How many ships does the rest of the RF have? I would assume quite a few if you were planning on taking out the SL after all. Someone has to step in. Also, with Jessyk and Kolatainos shipping lines in your pockets, surely you would be making civilian freighters left right and center if your base assumption was that the Manticoran fleet was going to effectively go extinct. If no cargo carrying capacity/trade--> you aren't taking over the SL. And of course pouring money into civilian goods manufacturing to put INTO those freighter hulls. All of which can mostly be hidden in plain sight.

How many other "boltholes" is the RF/MALIGN pouring money/effort into? Or just obvious ones built in the RF home systems? No reason to limit this to just Darius/Galton.

Plenty of mouths wanting resources. Galactic domination is an eternal resource pit. The good guys could probably make a good GUESS at who the bad guys are by simply looking at their economic infrastructure build out programs and put a HIGH probability of who are the bad guys.

In Mission of Honor, the Detweilers are meeting with the leaders of the eleven members of the Renaissance Factor. Ten member states are named: Mannerheim, Second Chance Republic, Kingdom of New Madagascar, Line System, Visigoth System, Democratic Republic of Thrace, Directorate of New Orkney, Comstock Republic, Republic of New Bombay and Marquisate of Denver. Mannerheim is given as the member with the strongest space force.

Mesa and Yildun are definitely NOT members of the RF; because the public posture of the Factor is strongly against genetic slavery. Which also means that the Jessyk and Kolatainos shipping lines are not in their pockets.

I have suggested in the past that the Malgn would be remiss if they did not have other hidden hideouts besides Galton and Darius, but that does not mean that they do.

PS: If the name of the country is the "Republic of X", then it probably is a democracy; But if the name is the "Democratic Republic of X" or the "Peoples' Republic of X", then it probably is not. Finally if the name is the "Peoples' Democratic Republic of X" or the "Democratic Peoples' Republic of X", then you should run away as fast as you can.

tlb wrote:

Relax wrote:WAY back, in memory lane, Storm From the Shadows we are told of ~10+? star nations which comprise the Renaissance Factor. The most Notable is Mannerheim, Mesa, Visgoth, Warner, Yoldin(Technodyne) etc. Warner/Visgoth due to Proximity and WH Bridges. But, we are also told there are ~a dozen or so nations outside the SL which have SD's and decent fleets. We have only been told of the Haven sector nations which have them.

I do not think it is a small branch to stand on with a saw in my hand , to believe that nearly ALL nations outside the SL with SD's more than likely are in the Renaissance Factor since we know NOTHING about them and if you WERE the RF/MALIGN you surely would either co-opt those nations, or get them into a war/destabilize as was done with the Haven Sector.

We also know that Mannerheim has a BIG fleet. How new are the ships? How many ships does the rest of the RF have? I would assume quite a few if you were planning on taking out the SL after all. Someone has to step in. Also, with Jessyk and Kolatainos shipping lines in your pockets, surely you would be making civilian freighters left right and center if your base assumption was that the Manticoran fleet was going to effectively go extinct. If no cargo carrying capacity/trade--> you aren't taking over the SL. And of course pouring money into civilian goods manufacturing to put INTO those freighter hulls. All of which can mostly be hidden in plain sight.

How many other "boltholes" is the RF/MALIGN pouring money/effort into? Or just obvious ones built in the RF home systems? No reason to limit this to just Darius/Galton.

Plenty of mouths wanting resources. Galactic domination is an eternal resource pit. The good guys could probably make a good GUESS at who the bad guys are by simply looking at their economic infrastructure build out programs and put a HIGH probability of who are the bad guys.

In Mission of Honor, the Detweilers are meeting with the leaders of the eleven members of the Renaissance Factor. Ten member states are named: Mannerheim, Second Chance Republic, Kingdom of New Madagascar, Line System, Visigoth System, Democratic Republic of Thrace, Directorate of New Orkney, Comstock Republic, Republic of New Bombay and Marquisate of Denver. Mannerheim is given as the member with the strongest space force.

Mesa and Yildun are definitely NOT members of the RF; because the public posture of the Factor is strongly against genetic slavery. Which also means that the Jessyk and Kolatainos shipping lines are not in their pockets.

I have suggested in the past that the Malgn would be remiss if they did not have other hidden hideouts besides Galton and Darius, but that does not mean that they do.

PS: If the name of the country is the "Republic of X", then it probably is a democracy; But if the name is the "Democratic Republic of X" or the "Peoples' Republic of X", then it probably is not. Finally if the name is the "Peoples' Democratic Republic of X" or the "Democratic Peoples' Republic of X", then you should run away as fast as you can.

Ah, off by a book. I'd swear in one of those shadow books they effectively said Visgoth is controlled by the MALIGN and same with YILDUN... ah well haven't read any book past 1st Havenite war in quite a while other than SoSAG and guess it is showing. =-) Though first chapter of MoH is quite nice... Just do not find any of those books past it appealing from a story telling perspective. Giant wordy aimless monstrosities. Though Uncompromising Honor was decent, but once again, huge piles of people introduced just so he could kill them off with ZERO reader attachment just makes me barf as a reader. Have to admit, having Honor alive kinda screwed the series over from a reader storytelling experience as now there are too many senior politics scenes and near zero character building action scenes for Rouel Harrington and presumably his treecat friends to build.

Relax wrote:Ah, off by a book. I'd swear in one of those shadow books they effectively said Visgoth is controlled by the MALIGN and same with YILDUN...

I am sure that you are correct when you say "they effectively said Visigoth is controlled by the MALIGN and same with YILDUN". But that is precisely why Yildun is not part of the Renaissance Factor: they have contributed to genetic slavery. The Factor is squeaky clean on that subject, which means (almost) no contamination is allowed whatsoever. I do not understand about Visigoth, because by that logic they should not be a member either. Is this something that was changed in the later books, where it was made clear that the RF is off in a corner of the map and not part of the Solarian League?

The only contact is basically between the Detweilers and the RF leaders in secret meetings, it is not clear how far down into the subordinates this linkage can go. We know there is some lower level knowledge (at Mannerheim anyway), because of the warships guarding the wormhole.