Solly Fleet Advancements

Whitecold wrote:

Alistair wrote:I think that there would be PLENTY of people wanting to hold the league together.

Many core worlds (even the "good" democratic ones) would have plenty of reasons to see a reform of the league or maybe a replacement that does the same thing better, rather than its destruction.

Think about it the core worlds have had to pay just a pittance of there G.S.P on defence and foreign affairs because of the existence of the league.

If the league breaks up into scores of succession states that "free ride" on defence ends.

An analogy could be given of the U.S.A and my home country New Zealand

Since World war 2 NZs defence spending has steadily dropped in real terms and we don't even have any combat aircraft anymore why?

Answer in part U.S Naval supremacy our exports can go on ships protected (indirectly) by the U.S Navy.

So while in NZ there are plenty of people on the streets who (sadly) don't like America those in power know that America supremacy gives stability and is better than its replacement (China?).

Same for the league in honourverse

If I were a good democrat on a core world despite the many, many grievous faults of the SL I would not be eager to simply join everyone in throwing the SL under the train because despite the SL sins it still has given stability and interstellar peace for literally thousands of years!!

I would use the current situation to either reform it or create a replacement that still leaves the League in top dog place.

In essence just as WW2 finished off the league of nations and paved the way for the United nations. the current war could finish off the league but many of the key players will want to see a replacement that gives them the advantages of the current regime.

And they would rather stick with the league then have it replaced by interstellar "dark age" where successor states routinely nuke planets and every core world planet has to have large fleets of SDs just to protect its existence.

The problem with that line of logic is that it is all League-wide, long-term thinking. If they stick together, they have a chance, a good one, but only if.
Individual planetary governments don't think about future defense budgets, and even if they do, it is easier for each and all to let the others burden the load of the war, and make a separate deal.
Sticking your head out for the SL seems like a good to invite a Manty raiding fleet, and once the first begin to flee the league, the rest will follow out of panic.

Indeed, Whitecold, for many SL systems, it is the 'Prisoners dilemma' writ large IMHO.

Take a Core system; I'll call mine Alexandia. It's economy is slumping because trade is down 80%, it's SLN presence (4 LC's) left a few months ago and never came back, and there are rumors about it's nearest neighbors (Bodaciea(SIC), Prague, and Istanbul (not Constaninople), which it doesn't much like anyway) looking to cut deals with the Manties.

And then a squadron of GA SD's come along, offering trade and peace if you denounce the SL, stop all activities in helping the SLN, and don't build anything military larger than LAC's. But you have to decide now, because we're on a tight schedule and need to go to Istanbul next to make the same offer. You can reject it of course and we'll leave--after taking out all SLN assets (or those that we think could be used by the SLN) along with any and all freighters that are in the system.....

So no way to consult with Old Earth, no way to consult with your nearest neighbors, and what looks like a good way to get your economy re-started.....versus an even harder hit to your economy, and the possiblity your neighbors will cut a deal and gain perhaps an insurmountable advantage over you.....

Interesting times, I would think....

IMHO as Always. YMMV.

kzt wrote:I hear there is one called the Renaissance something or other....

Actually, there are two.


There's the Renaissance Association that's been trying to reform the League from within (which we saw in CoS) with little success.

As yet to be seen by anyone not in the MAlign is the Renaissance Factor, which sure seems to have deliberately chosen a similar name so that it can trade off the reputation thereof.

I won't be the least bit surprised to find out that the MAlign has moles in the RA poised to encourage people to think the RF is somehow part of the RA, or that it's the "real" RA committed to actually getting something done while the nominal RA is a bunch of navel-gazing nothings.

you certainly have courage to flirt with a flame war by making this comparison, LOL.

IIRC, aside from all the money extorted and looted from Verge worlds by the OSF, the SL is supported by tariffs on interstellar trade. The protection from the SLN is therefore dirt cheap, but it is not free.

I agree with your assessment that a desire to maintain stability will motivate many SL systems, particularly core systems, to keep the SL intact. This is why they voted to reject Beawulf's secession.

This being acknowledged, it is going to occur to a lot of people that the SLN has, (or more accurately had) some 2,000 active SLN SDs and about 10,000 SDs and DNs in reserve. Even if all the reserve fleet SDs are activated, that is a total of 12,000 SDs or only 12 SDs per SL core system. Not only is the SLN no longer a credible deterrent because the GA have been kicking the crap out of them, they don't have enough ships available to provide in system forces to protect them from lower intensity threats. This is presuming that the SL system has the political clout to warrant detachment of SDs.

Once individual system governments have contemplated these realities, they are going to decide that building or buying their own, credible SDF along with cutting a deal with either the GA or the MALIG are by far the best strategy.

Alistair wrote:I think that there would be PLENTY of people wanting to hold the league together.

Many core worlds (even the "good" democratic ones) would have plenty of reasons to see a reform of the league or maybe a replacement that does the same thing better, rather than its destruction.

Think about it the core worlds have had to pay just a pittance of there G.S.P on defence and foreign affairs because of the existence of the league.

If the league breaks up into scores of succession states that "free ride" on defence ends.

An analogy could be given of the U.S.A and my home country New Zealand

Since World war 2 NZs defence spending has steadily dropped in real terms and we don't even have any combat aircraft anymore why?

Answer in part U.S Naval supremacy our exports can go on ships protected (indirectly) by the U.S Navy.

So while in NZ there are plenty of people on the streets who (sadly) don't like America those in power know that America supremacy gives stability and is better than its replacement (China?).

Same for the league in honourverse

If I were a good democrat on a core world despite the many, many grievous faults of the SL I would not be eager to simply join everyone in throwing the SL under the train because despite the SL sins it still has given stability and interstellar peace for literally thousands of years!!

I would use the current situation to either reform it or create a replacement that still leaves the League in top dog place.

In essence just as WW2 finished off the league of nations and paved the way for the United nations. the current war could finish off the league but many of the key players will want to see a replacement that gives them the advantages of the current regime.

And they would rather stick with the league then have it replaced by interstellar "dark age" where successor states routinely nuke planets and every core world planet has to have large fleets of SDs just to protect its existence.

Whitecold wrote:The problem with that line of logic is that it is all League-wide, long-term thinking. If they stick together, they have a chance, a good one, but only if.
Individual planetary governments don't think about future defense budgets, and even if they do, it is easier for each and all to let the others burden the load of the war, and make a separate deal.
Sticking your head out for the SL seems like a good to invite a Manty raiding fleet, and once the first begin to flee the league, the rest will follow out of panic.

Some might leave simply because they see Manticore as a better deal in simple monetary terms. Lower costs and more money retained in-system.

KNick wrote:Some might leave simply because they see Manticore as a better deal in simple monetary terms. Lower costs and more money retained in-system.

Umm, how?

There are no taxes paid by SL members or their citizens directly. Plus the SL doesn't really care about your local government.

Do you really think depending on for your safety on someone halfway across the galaxy who you expect to show up for free any time you have a problem will work out well? Or were you suggesting that they surrender their independence and start paying the SEM taxes directly? How does that lower costs and retain money?

namelessfly wrote:you certainly have courage to flirt with a flame war by making this comparison, LOL.

IIRC, aside from all the money extorted and looted from Verge worlds by the OSF, the SL is supported by tariffs on interstellar trade. The protection from the SLN is therefore dirt cheap, but it is not free.

I agree with your assessment that a desire to maintain stability will motivate many SL systems, particularly core systems, to keep the SL intact. This is why they voted to reject Beawulf's secession.

This being acknowledged, it is going to occur to a lot of people that the SLN has, (or more accurately had) some 2,000 active SLN SDs and about 10,000 SDs and DNs in reserve. Even if all the reserve fleet SDs are activated, that is a total of 12,000 SDs or only 12 SDs per SL core system. Not only is the SLN no longer a credible deterrent because the GA have been kicking the crap out of them, they don't have enough ships available to provide in system forces to protect them from lower intensity threats. This is presuming that the SL system has the political clout to warrant detachment of SDs.

Once individual system governments have contemplated these realities, they are going to decide that building or buying their own, credible SDF along with cutting a deal with either the GA or the MALIG are by far the best strategy.

That's a very plausible scenario and I'm sure some systems will see things in that light and they will at least lean toward the direction that you've specified. But then there are two things which you also need to consider which may give you pause.

The first of these things is, what happens after you accede to GA demands and separate yourself from the League. What happens to you when this is all over.

Your a world who has lived probably for centuries under the semi-autonomous peace that the League has helped provide. This doesn't simply include the protective might of the SLN but interstellar commerce and cooperation that can draw upon a thousand major worlds and many others for mutual support and benefit.

If the SLN unravels now you are a single world amongst thousands of other worlds each with their own agendas. Those worlds with powerful SDF's are now going to have national fleets. There will be power struggles, war. Right now you're economic depression is caused by an artificial source, a lack of merchant hulls to carry cargos but that can be repaired fairly quickly if League resources are dedicated to it. However the devastation to trade that hundreds of conflicts, tariff wars and just the breakdown of the smoothly flowing machine that is the League isn't something temporary, it's something scary and very permanent if the League fails.

The other aspect is pride. You're a important world of the Solarian League. You have been the shining beacon of humanity since the Disporsa centuries ago. You have a common culture, a common past and an identity. Are you really ready to give that up for what amount to some short term trade concessions?

The League has survived for all this time not because of the SLN, but because it makes sense for over a thousand primary worlds that are interwoven and connected by it. Those forces don't come from the undersecretaries nor by intimidation by the SLN, those forces speak to something deeper and it's something that MANY people are going to want to passionately preserve.

The Aligment has worked ceaselessly to break those bonds apart for decades and decades and they've needed to exert that effort not because those bonds are weak, but because they are amazingly strong.

Whatever happens there is going to be a hard core of the League that is not going to simply shatter, who are not going to give up the League for the reestablishment of commerce. It might be 600 primary worlds, 400, 100 but whatever they are, they aren't going to break unless someone breaks them and they will resist any attempts to do so.

I don't think even the Alignment plan presupposes that the League will simply fall apart, I think they expect this hard core to survive. What they want to do is cripple it to the extent possible so that when it comes time for the Alignment to fully reveal itself and began it's attempt to consume known space, that whatever remains of the League will not be able to stop them.

Alizon wrote:That's a very plausible scenario and I'm sure some systems will see things in that light and they will at least lean toward the direction that you've specified. But then there are two things which you also need to consider which may give you pause.

The first of these things is, what happens after you accede to GA demands and separate yourself from the League. What happens to you when this is all over.

Your a world who has lived probably for centuries under the semi-autonomous peace that the League has helped provide. This doesn't simply include the protective might of the SLN but interstellar commerce and cooperation that can draw upon a thousand major worlds and many others for mutual support and benefit.

If the SLN unravels now you are a single world amongst thousands of other worlds each with their own agendas. Those worlds with powerful SDF's are now going to have national fleets. There will be power struggles, war. Right now you're economic depression is caused by an artificial source, a lack of merchant hulls to carry cargos but that can be repaired fairly quickly if League resources are dedicated to it. However the devastation to trade that hundreds of conflicts, tariff wars and just the breakdown of the smoothly flowing machine that is the League isn't something temporary, it's something scary and very permanent if the League fails.

The other aspect is pride. You're a important world of the Solarian League. You have been the shining beacon of humanity since the Disporsa centuries ago. You have a common culture, a common past and an identity. Are you really ready to give that up for what amount to some short term trade concessions?

The League has survived for all this time not because of the SLN, but because it makes sense for over a thousand primary worlds that are interwoven and connected by it. Those forces don't come from the undersecretaries nor by intimidation by the SLN, those forces speak to something deeper and it's something that MANY people are going to want to passionately preserve.

The Aligment has worked ceaselessly to break those bonds apart for decades and decades and they've needed to exert that effort not because those bonds are weak, but because they are amazingly strong.

Whatever happens there is going to be a hard core of the League that is not going to simply shatter, who are not going to give up the League for the reestablishment of commerce. It might be 600 primary worlds, 400, 100 but whatever they are, they aren't going to break unless someone breaks them and they will resist any attempts to do so.

I don't think even the Alignment plan presupposes that the League will simply fall apart, I think they expect this hard core to survive. What they want to do is cripple it to the extent possible so that when it comes time for the Alignment to fully reveal itself and began it's attempt to consume known space, that whatever remains of the League will not be able to stop them.

I disagree with your interpretation of public opinion. I highly doubt that the Sollies have a common culture, and identify them primarily as Solarians. They are in first place Beowulfans, or Mannerheimers, or whatever their Home planet is. Yes they are part of the SL, but that just means they are a civilized planet. The SL is too large, and with transit times measured in weeks and months, attention is focused to the more immediate sector of space.
And while it makes sense for the League to exist, the defeats and the threat of the Manties raise panic. Every rich planet wants now their own Navy, that is guaranteed to protect them, and will be looking for allies, and if only a few leave, panic will only spread.
The unraveling can't be stopped by any single system, but it can start with a single one.

MAD-4A wrote:

SWM wrote:The existing ships in the Solarian League Navy are quite adequate for those missions. They do not need anti-missile platforms for that. The only purpose for building anti-missile platforms would be as screen for a wall of battle, and the only possible targets for a wall are the Grand Alliance or the Mesan Alignment (which they don't believe in).

No, the SL needs all the AMS they can get until they can match (or come close to it) the GA's range & accel. advantage!

Please pay attention to what I was actually responding to. Alizon said:

Well, this all depends on what you plan to use your vessels for. The SLN has any number of needs for vessels which don't include fighting the RMN. They have more systems to patrol, more planets to keep in line than you can shake a supernova at and the LAC's that they can build are essentially the whole rowboat with a machine gun variety.

From a strategic point of view, you have a need to concentrate your forces but if you leave the rest of the SLN and it's client states unpatrolled, any number of bad things can happen. You can't use LAC's because you really don't have them and since in have a bizzilion systems to worry about.

He was using that as an argument that they needed hundreds of frigates for anti-missile platforms. I pointed out that those missions do not require anti-missile platforms. The SLN only needs anti-missile platforms for offensive forces intended to engage the Grand Alliance.

MAD-4A wrote:

Potato wrote:Destroyers have virtually no economic or industrial premium over frigates, but have at least half again the combat effectiveness. Why buy a barebones Toyota Corolla when you can get a top of the line Camry for virtually the same price? It is incomprehensible to choose the lesser option when by any yardstick the destroyer ends up the better choice.

so your saying all those other weapon are free & require no additional crews? The SLN may call it a "light destroyer" if you like that better but it’s the same thing. You also don't have to design from scratch, a scaled down destroyer with minimum offensive weapons & the same AMS would be more like it. The US DEs of WWII were basically cut down Fletchers with only 2 turrets, 1 triple TT & cheap readily available engines. The point is you make a lite ship with minimum equipment and crew that can operate with the fleet as a hyper capable AMS screen with minimum equipment as expendable (you will lose some - but with the least loss per unit) that's a "frigate" by any other name. so while overall on a "per-ship" basis you may get "more bang for the buck" with a full-up destroyer, it also takes longer to produce and costs more which means on a "per loss" basis you end up losing more per loss with a destroyer than with a frigate. There’s also the "viable target" factor, the GA are more likely to expend missile on a fleet destroyer than on a frigate. which means if you send (say) 30 DD's as a forward screen, the enemy light units are likely to target those lead destroyers to get there AMS out of the way of the capitol missile, its less likely for them to actively target 40 or 50 escort frigates that way - most FC crews would ignore them and target the fleet DDs behind them near the capitols therefore most of your FF losses will be from "target of opportunity" on the part of the missiles AI, not active targeting. These ships (being smaller than even a DD) would also have a smaller hyper footprint and thus be less likely to be seen entering and leaving a system as an advanced scout. Which is another role they could be useful for when more advanced fleet units become available that can deal with the GA units on their own.

The problem with this argument is that your numbers don't work. For the cost of 30 destroyers, you can build less than 40 frigates, probably more like 35. And it will require essentially the same manpower for both consruction and crew. The lower cost of a frigate is simply not worth it--the added anti-missile capacity of a destroyer-sized platform is more than worth the small additional cost.

Whitecold wrote:

Alizon wrote:That's a very plausible scenario and I'm sure some systems will see things in that light and they will at least lean toward the direction that you've specified. But then there are two things which you also need to consider which may give you pause.

The first of these things is, what happens after you accede to GA demands and separate yourself from the League. What happens to you when this is all over.

Your a world who has lived probably for centuries under the semi-autonomous peace that the League has helped provide. This doesn't simply include the protective might of the SLN but interstellar commerce and cooperation that can draw upon a thousand major worlds and many others for mutual support and benefit.

If the SLN unravels now you are a single world amongst thousands of other worlds each with their own agendas. Those worlds with powerful SDF's are now going to have national fleets. There will be power struggles, war. Right now you're economic depression is caused by an artificial source, a lack of merchant hulls to carry cargos but that can be repaired fairly quickly if League resources are dedicated to it. However the devastation to trade that hundreds of conflicts, tariff wars and just the breakdown of the smoothly flowing machine that is the League isn't something temporary, it's something scary and very permanent if the League fails.

The other aspect is pride. You're a important world of the Solarian League. You have been the shining beacon of humanity since the Disporsa centuries ago. You have a common culture, a common past and an identity. Are you really ready to give that up for what amount to some short term trade concessions?

The League has survived for all this time not because of the SLN, but because it makes sense for over a thousand primary worlds that are interwoven and connected by it. Those forces don't come from the undersecretaries nor by intimidation by the SLN, those forces speak to something deeper and it's something that MANY people are going to want to passionately preserve.

The Aligment has worked ceaselessly to break those bonds apart for decades and decades and they've needed to exert that effort not because those bonds are weak, but because they are amazingly strong.

Whatever happens there is going to be a hard core of the League that is not going to simply shatter, who are not going to give up the League for the reestablishment of commerce. It might be 600 primary worlds, 400, 100 but whatever they are, they aren't going to break unless someone breaks them and they will resist any attempts to do so.

I don't think even the Alignment plan presupposes that the League will simply fall apart, I think they expect this hard core to survive. What they want to do is cripple it to the extent possible so that when it comes time for the Alignment to fully reveal itself and began it's attempt to consume known space, that whatever remains of the League will not be able to stop them.

I disagree with your interpretation of public opinion. I highly doubt that the Sollies have a common culture, and identify them primarily as Solarians. They are in first place Beowulfans, or Mannerheimers, or whatever their Home planet is. Yes they are part of the SL, but that just means they are a civilized planet. The SL is too large, and with transit times measured in weeks and months, attention is focused to the more immediate sector of space.
And while it makes sense for the League to exist, the defeats and the threat of the Manties raise panic. Every rich planet wants now their own Navy, that is guaranteed to protect them, and will be looking for allies, and if only a few leave, panic will only spread.
The unraveling can't be stopped by any single system, but it can start with a single one.

I quite agree. If the member worlds cared about the League, they would have selected representatives that cared. We know that in fact the bureaucrats pretty much controlled the Assembly and the government.

The truth is that the League would probably have shattered under its own weight in another century or so anyway without major slash-and-burn root-and-branch change.