Question about Beowulf tactics

In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

At that point, I don't think Beowulf cared about politically safer.

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck,...

Not really. The Beowulfers and Manticore are acting pretty much as, and for the reasons given, Capt al-Fanudahi of BF Intel says:

“None that I can think of right offhand,” al-Fanudahi conceded. “But the evidence from the merchies who’ve been passing through Beowulf since Raging Justice does seem to suggest that the Manty forces in Beowulf space are concentrated around the terminus, not the planet.”

“So what?” Teague demanded. “Superdreadnoughts are mobile, you know!”

“Yes, and the Beowulf System Defense Force is a nasty handful all on its own, which doesn’t even consider the system’s fixed defenses,” al-Fanudahi agreed. “What I suspect our lords and masters are thinking about is that the Manties appear to be trying to avoid stepping on any Solarian sensibilities, especially until the final tally is in on Beowulf’s plebiscite. It may be politics on their part, for all I know.”

“Politics?”

“If they want to encourage other star systems to follow Beowulf’s example—to encourage the fragmentation of the League—they’d want to avoid any suggestion that they’re using force majeure to turn Beowulf into some sort of Manty puppet régime, don’t you think? One way to do that would to be to let Beowulf defend Beowulfan space while they defend the terminus, instead of putting a batch of their wallers into Beowulf orbit. It avoids the appearance of iron-fist pressure on Beowulf’s voters at a particularly delicate moment … and just happens to put their superdreadnoughts a couple of light-hours away from Beowulf itself.”

“You mean Kingsford and Bernard are thinking in terms of pouncing on Beowulf—coming straight in across the hyper limit and going flat out for the planet—before any Manty forces at the terminus can intervene?”

There is another discussion somewhere -- by the good guys, IIRC -- that says the same thing with the added information that Beowulf expects to have it's Mycroft system and Apollo system defense pods online before the secession vote.

SWM wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

At that point, I don't think Beowulf cared about politically safer.

I agree with SWM here. Beowulf is not overly interested in politically safe.

But then the question can be validly asked about what Beowulf is trying to accomplish. My sense is that Beowulf's leaders have already decided to side with Manticore at this time in her confrontation with the League. The confrontation with the Tsang was staged in such a way as to make it plain that the League was willing to violate Beowulf's sovereignty by insisting on using the junction after Beowulf said no and using force to get what it wanted which was a violation of the constitution sinse there had been no declaration of war.

That helps the Directors by solidifying public opinion behind the Directors desired policy to leave the League. Having Manticore involved assures Beowulf's public that is she does leave the League, she won't be standing alone if she stands against the League. Projected favorable vote for plebicite to leave was over 80% after Tsang's blunder. Manticore's reputation is also enhanced by Truman's restraint in not simply blowing Tsang out of space.

All of this is further driven home when the unedited tapes are released because it forces the other core worlds and member states to come to grips with the question about whether or not the League would be willing to violate their sovereignty should it be convenient to do so.

It would appear that the League is planning to move in force upon Beowulf which should it turn out that the Mandarins are dumb enough to do, the lesson will be driven home further which nay well result in other worlds peeling away from the League.

So in conclusion, it looks to me like the confrontation with Tsang was handled pretty much just right.

Don

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

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

The intention, as noted in the text, was to have Tsang backdown when formally faced with Beowulf's military and civilian authorities refusal.
Having Truman appear earlier, or have the Beowulf SDF appear as formally allied with the RMN would have been improper.
If the SLN backed off, Alice stays in stealth. She comes out only AFTER the SLN has committed itself as publicly violating the SL Constitution.

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

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

The intention, as noted in the text, was to have Tsang backdown when formally faced with Beowulf's military and civilian authorities refusal.
Having Truman appear earlier, or have the Beowulf SDF appear as formally allied with the RMN would have been improper.
If the SLN backed off, Alice stays in stealth. She comes out only AFTER the SLN has committed itself as publicly violating the SL Constitution.

-- Stewart

Stewart, I think you misunderstood the question. Instead of Truman coming out of stealth and speaking to Tsang, why wasn't it the civilian head of the Beowulf defense forces who, standing in Truman's flag deck that speaks to Tsang, saying they had borrowed 60 odd Manty SD(P)s. This makes it appear the Beowulf is resisting the SL and avoids stepping on SL sensibilities as hard.

WRT to the proposed SL attack on Beowulf (discussed at the end of ART), the question is the SL going to be able to mount the attack before Mycroft is activated. If they do get it off prior to Mycroft being activated, Beowulf could end up in a world of hurt. I would think that a stopgap measure would be for Beowulf to borrow about 30 SD(P)s from Manticore, crew them with Beowulf crews, and park them in Beowulf orbit until Mycroft is ready. Otherwise, a sudden attack by the SL could be disastrous.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Stewart, I think you misunderstood the question. Instead of Truman coming out of stealth and speaking to Tsang, why wasn't it the civilian head of the Beowulf defense forces who, standing in Truman's flag deck that speaks to Tsang, saying they had borrowed 60 odd Manty SD(P)s. This makes it appear the Beowulf is resisting the SL and avoids stepping on SL sensibilities as hard.

I don't see what the intent there would be. Beowulf had already made clear that it wasn't going to give permission for Tsang to transit the wormhole with her fleet and would use force to prevent her doing so if necessary. Tsang then made it clear that she was prepared to shoot her way to the terminus, constitution be damned, at which point Truman made her entrance. Either way, Beowulf was either defending itself against an illegal threat by the SLN or siding with a foreign power against the League, depending on your point of view. Putting the Beowulfan equivalent of Hamish on Truman's flag deck wouldn't change that.

fallsfromtrees wrote:In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer.

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

fallsfromtrees wrote:

stewart wrote:The intention, as noted in the text, was to have Tsang backdown when formally faced with Beowulf's military and civilian authorities refusal.
Having Truman appear earlier, or have the Beowulf SDF appear as formally allied with the RMN would have been improper.
If the SLN backed off, Alice stays in stealth. She comes out only AFTER the SLN has committed itself as publicly violating the SL Constitution.

-- Stewart

Stewart, I think you misunderstood the question. Instead of Truman coming out of stealth and speaking to Tsang, why wasn't it the civilian head of the Beowulf defense forces who, standing in Truman's flag deck that speaks to Tsang, saying they had borrowed 60 odd Manty SD(P)s. This makes it appear the Beowulf is resisting the SL and avoids stepping on SL sensibilities as hard.

WRT to the proposed SL attack on Beowulf (discussed at the end of ART), the question is the SL going to be able to mount the attack before Mycroft is activated. If they do get it off prior to Mycroft being activated, Beowulf could end up in a world of hurt. I would think that a stopgap measure would be for Beowulf to borrow about 30 SD(P)s from Manticore, crew them with Beowulf crews, and park them in Beowulf orbit until Mycroft is ready. Otherwise, a sudden attack by the SL could be disastrous.

Beowulf crews would have no idea which buttons to push, unless taking over an SD is way simpler than hotwiring a really modern sports car. Beowulf Captains "Tactical officers: Smite mightily the Solarians." might work.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

stewart wrote: "fallsfromtrees"In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer. quote

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

The intention, as noted in the text, was to have Tsang backdown when formally faced with Beowulf's military and civilian authorities refusal.
Having Truman appear earlier, or have the Beowulf SDF appear as formally allied with the RMN would have been improper.
If the SLN backed off, Alice stays in stealth. She comes out only AFTER the SLN has committed itself as publicly violating the SL Constitution.

-- Stewart

Stewart, I think you misunderstood the question. Instead of Truman coming out of stealth and speaking to Tsang, why wasn't it the civilian head of the Beowulf defense forces who, standing in Truman's flag deck that speaks to Tsang, saying they had borrowed 60 odd Manty SD(P)s. This makes it appear the Beowulf is resisting the SL and avoids stepping on SL sensibilities as hard.

WRT to the proposed SL attack on Beowulf (discussed at the end of ART), the question is the SL going to be able to mount the attack before Mycroft is activated. If they do get it off prior to Mycroft being activated, Beowulf could end up in a world of hurt. I would think that a stopgap measure would be for Beowulf to borrow about 30 SD(P)s from Manticore, crew them with Beowulf crews, and park them in Beowulf orbit until Mycroft is ready. Otherwise, a sudden attack by the SL could be disastrous.

It would have looked like Manticore was leaning on Beowulf if they had 'loaned' 30 SO(P)s to Beowulf. It would have been easy to spin it to the SL as Manticore muscling in and forcing Beowulf to bow to its will rather than having a free and open election on the succession plebiscite.

As has been noted, those ships would have RMN crews since the Beowulf SDF, as good as it might be, simply is not up to operating RMN equipment, especially the most modern warships the RMN has. As far as I know the Beowulf SDF and the RMN didn't make it a habit of sharing military personnel with their respective military forces. So having the showdown go as it did preserves Beowulf's position as having the vote legally and freely while Manticore is operating under its legal position as owner of that end of the wormhole (a standard Manticore position I believe. They own both sides of all of the wormholes in the Manticore Wormhole junction.)

Hi Zakharra, guys;

ART ended in July, and Mycroft was to take 2 month's to set up.

CoG ended in October, and HA-H was waiting at the SKM's WHJ, quite calmly; so either Mycroft was now up as planned and nothing had happened, or the GA had word the SLN was about to pull the trigger.

Given Apollo's current known range is in excess of 5 light minutes, any invading force could be allowed past the hyper limit for an hour or 90 minutes to clearly indicate its intentions, while the BSDF pickets and scouts in hyper looked for a mouse trap force some place in hyper [within 3-6 light month's? 100-200 light days?], although without FTL.coms coordinating such a plan could easily falter and crash, so one wonders if the SLN has anything like the RMN's tactical simulator, that would enable it to run its various plans through potential pitfalls on the scale required [without getting into what the SLN doesn't know about the GA].

But I suspect the BSDF and the system defenses are far more formidable than the SLN realizes, before considering GA tech improvements, in part because RFC has mentioned the RMN and BSDF have trained together so the BSDF is much more familiar with RMN tech than some posters here have supposed.

The posts are in the collected pearls at fifth imperium, for those who haven't enjoyed them yet.

L

Zakharra wrote:*quote="fallsfromtrees"*[quote="stewart"] "fallsfromtrees"In ART when Tsang is attempting to push through the wormhole and is turned away by Alice Truman, would it not have made more sense to have had the civilian head of the defense forces for Beowulf on Truman's flag deck, and have him tell Tsang that Beowulf suspected that the SL was going to attempt to force, and so they had borrowed a few SD(P)s from Manticore, and that if she really wanted to die today, they would be willing to save them the trip to Manticore, and take care of the job right now. This makes it an entirely Beowulf action, which would seem to be politically safer. quote

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

The intention, as noted in the text, was to have Tsang backdown when formally faced with Beowulf's military and civilian authorities refusal.
Having Truman appear earlier, or have the Beowulf SDF appear as formally allied with the RMN would have been improper.
If the SLN backed off, Alice stays in stealth. She comes out only AFTER the SLN has committed itself as publicly violating the SL Constitution.

-- Stewart*quote*
Stewart, I think you misunderstood the question. Instead of Truman coming out of stealth and speaking to Tsang, why wasn't it the civilian head of the Beowulf defense forces who, standing in Truman's flag deck that speaks to Tsang, saying they had borrowed 60 odd Manty SD(P)s. This makes it appear the Beowulf is resisting the SL and avoids stepping on SL sensibilities as hard.

WRT to the proposed SL attack on Beowulf (discussed at the end of ART), the question is the SL going to be able to mount the attack before Mycroft is activated. If they do get it off prior to Mycroft being activated, Beowulf could end up in a world of hurt. I would think that a stopgap measure would be for Beowulf to borrow about 30 SD(P)s from Manticore, crew them with Beowulf crews, and park them in Beowulf orbit until Mycroft is ready. Otherwise, a sudden attack by the SL could be disastrous.

It would have looked like Manticore was leaning on Beowulf if they had 'loaned' 30 SO(P)s to Beowulf. It would have been easy to spin it to the SL as Manticore muscling in and forcing Beowulf to bow to its will rather than having a free and open election on the succession plebiscite.

As has been noted, those ships would have RMN crews since the Beowulf SDF, as good as it might be, simply is not up to operating RMN equipment, especially the most modern warships the RMN has. As far as I know the Beowulf SDF and the RMN didn't make it a habit of sharing military personnel with their respective military forces. So having the showdown go as it did preserves Beowulf's position as having the vote legally and freely while Manticore is operating under its legal position as owner of that end of the wormhole (a standard Manticore position I believe. They own both sides of all of the wormholes in the Manticore Wormhole junction.)[/quote]