The Two General's Problem

The Two General's Problem

Is this really a problem for the MAN? Since they travel in a hyper band that is inaccessible to any other navy, then their messenger cannot be intercepted.

Then there is the Streak Drive and their unprecedented stealth.

penny wrote:Then there is the Streak Drive and their unprecedented stealth.

Do you mean the SPIDER-DRIVE and its "unprecedented stealth"?

The Grand Alliance already has the secrets of the streak-drive and will soon have working models to travel in hyper bands that were formerly inaccessible.

Note that Haven solved the problem of attacking Honor while coordinating with other attacks in War of Honor, by the use of ships carrying messages (including a neutral dispatch boat).

The Solarian League was also going to use a neutral dispatch boat to coordinate the second prong of the attack on Manticore.

White Haven managed to have a second prong come through the junction when attacking Trevor's Star.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Then there is the Streak Drive and their unprecedented stealth.

Do you mean the SPIDER-DRIVE and its "unprecedented stealth"?

The Grand Alliance already has the secrets of the streak-drive and will soon have working models to travel in hyper bands that were formerly inaccessible.

Note that Haven solved the problem of attacking Honor while coordinating with other attacks in War of Honor, by the use of ships carrying messages (including a neutral dispatch boat).

The Solarian League was also going to use a neutral dispatch boat to coordinate the second prong of the attack on Manticore.

White Haven managed to have a second prong come through the junction when attacking Trevor's Star.

My apology tlb. I hate it when my time is limited and I don't have time to exit the car and I just do a drive-by instead. Drive-bys often miss the target completely.

To be clearer, I was trying to say that the MAN has both the Streak drive, ferrying messages faster, to go along with their unprecedented stealth (via the spider drive, yes) to conspire to make coordination of forces even less of a problem.

Honor's tactic of revving up the wedge to send a signal in hyper should work for several different fleets located in hyper as well, right?

Honor's tactic could also signal the DB positioned to pull an SLN. Glad you brought that up.

penny wrote:The Two General's Problem

Is this really a problem for the MAN? Since they travel in a hyper band that is inaccessible to any other navy, then their messenger cannot be intercepted.

At a practical level maybe not.
But at a theoretical level the two generals problem still exists -- after all some mechanical or navigation accident might befall their messenger; or something may have happened and the recipient isn't where the messenger ship expected to find them.



The Two Generals problem exists whenever there's a chance, for whatever reason, that a message might not reach its intended recipient and thus you might end up unsure if they received it.

But at a practical level it can often be ignored when that chance is sufficiently low.

(And anyway, you try to build battle tactics and strategy such that it isn't a disaster if someone wasn't able to do what you ordered them to. For any reason; even ones not related to whether they got the message and you know that they did)

penny wrote:Honor's tactic of revving up the wedge to send a signal in hyper should work for several different fleets located in hyper as well, right?

Honor's trick with the wedge lead to FTL communication, but does not by itself send a signal into hyperspace. Every instance of that involved a ship transitioning up to pass the message.

tlb wrote:

penny wrote:Honor's tactic of revving up the wedge to send a signal in hyper should work for several different fleets located in hyper as well, right?

Honor's trick with the wedge lead to FTL communication, but does not by itself send a signal into hyperspace. Every instance of that involved a ship transitioning up to pass the message.

Doh! Thanks tlb. I forgot the details of that! My memory is in need of prolong. Stealthy Ghosts could be waiting to carry the message into hyper.

Dunno why I was thinking ships in hyper could see the ripple of the wedge along the wall. Like photons from the sun hitting our atmosphere and causing a Borealis.

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:The Two General's Problem

Is this really a problem for the MAN? Since they travel in a hyper band that is inaccessible to any other navy, then their messenger cannot be intercepted.

At a practical level maybe not.
But at a theoretical level the two generals problem still exists -- after all some mechanical or navigation accident might befall their messenger; or something may have happened and the recipient isn't where the messenger ship expected to find them.



The Two Generals problem exists whenever there's a chance, for whatever reason, that a message might not reach its intended recipient and thus you might end up unsure if they received it.

But at a practical level it can often be ignored when that chance is sufficiently low.

(And anyway, you try to build battle tactics and strategy such that it isn't a disaster if someone wasn't able to do what you ordered them to. For any reason; even ones not related to whether they got the message and you know that they did)

True. But every proposed solution features sending redundant messengers. Sending several messengers with the order to attack at a certain time, then waiting for receipt of confirmation should solve the problem. The time to attack should always be greater than the round trip. The round trip time should be known. There shouldn't be a chance of not finding the other fleet. Their coordinates is known, and there will be no reason to move because an enemy ship almost stumbled upon them.

penny wrote:True. But every proposed solution features sending redundant messengers. Sending several messengers with the order to attack at a certain time, then waiting for receipt of confirmation should solve the problem. The time to attack should always be greater than the round trip. The round trip time should be known. There shouldn't be a chance of not finding the other fleet. Their coordinates is known, and there will be no reason to move because an enemy ship almost stumbled upon them.

It's true that redundant messengers decreases the likelihood of the message going awry.

And even for the MAlign, even if we accept a 0% change of an enemy ship stumbling across the other fleet, there are still situations which might cause them to not be where you expected.

Two possible ones would be:
1) there are more than two "generals" involved and unknown to you someone else already sent that fleet orders which they've left to implement.
2) the "general" in charge of that fleet became aware of an opportunity (enemy vulnerability) that was just too good to pass up and took the fleet off on their own initiative

(In both cases it's possible that a notification is on its way to you; but may not have reached you before you sent out your orders)


And outside of the special case of the MAlign planning a surprise, there are plenty of situations wars where there isn't time or ability to get a return message -- where you just have to send the orders and hope for the best. (Which building contingencies into your plans to hopefully limit the impact should it turn out those orders didn't get the expected result)

Jonathan_S wrote:

penny wrote:True. But every proposed solution features sending redundant messengers. Sending several messengers with the order to attack at a certain time, then waiting for receipt of confirmation should solve the problem. The time to attack should always be greater than the round trip. The round trip time should be known. There shouldn't be a chance of not finding the other fleet. Their coordinates is known, and there will be no reason to move because an enemy ship almost stumbled upon them.

It's true that redundant messengers decreases the likelihood of the message going awry.

And even for the MAlign, even if we accept a 0% change of an enemy ship stumbling across the other fleet, there are still situations which might cause them to not be where you expected.

Two possible ones would be:
1) there are more than two "generals" involved and unknown to you someone else already sent that fleet orders which they've left to implement.
2) the "general" in charge of that fleet became aware of an opportunity (enemy vulnerability) that was just too good to pass up and took the fleet off on their own initiative

(In both cases it's possible that a notification is on its way to you; but may not have reached you before you sent out your orders)


And outside of the special case of the MAlign planning a surprise, there are plenty of situations wars where there isn't time or ability to get a return message -- where you just have to send the orders and hope for the best. (Which building contingencies into your plans to hopefully limit the impact should it turn out those orders didn't get the expected result)

I see your point. But wouldn't that essentially make it a Three General's problem?

And that would fall under the “commandeering of forces.“ Even in the RMN I don't think anyone would be allowed to commandeer a force that is particularly slated to be a part of an important two prong attack.

It'd be like Admiral Tsang allowing her fleet to be commandeered when she was tasked to support Admiral Filareta. Or like Tsang running off to chase after other priorities at the moment of truth on her own.



P.S. Unlike something Thinksmarkedly would say, at least you didn't say the messengers could be eaten by a huge galactic amoeba.