GA Strategy, Tactics and Targets

the sollies hope to raid, but say the alliance uses the tech supplied by have to create their own systeme defence system, combined with mantie tech, even with the lesser havinite tech, they will ensure raiding forces suffer, especially if backed by LACs.
This will allow the hyper units to attack their infrastructure and logistics in the verge, shell or simply near terminii.
Thios destabilises and crushes the league, and lets them go after the alignment.

Weird Harold wrote:

lyonheart wrote:The idea was that detecting the Spider's energy taps of hyper space from the other side would be much easier [not stealthed etc] than normal space where the Spider was actively trying to hide its signature.

First, isn't one of the problems with navigation in Hyper that nothing from real-space is detectable in Hyper?

While I can't find it at the moment but I swear I remember RFC already addressing the idea of looking for the spider drive's impact from the Alpha side.

As I recall he said that even a wedge, which he said is more powerful than a spider drive, doesn't produce any detectable signal on the alpha band side of the alpha wall, and a spider drive wouldn't either.


Mission of Honor says "the [spider drive node] beams punched clear through to the alpha wall" and apparently that "to" is important; they don't punch "through" the alpha wall. All their impact is apparently limited to the n-space side of that wall. (Ah well, it sounded like an elegant solution to detecting them)

The Malign plan has already started to fray around the edges and it will probably get worse. Things were going as planned right up to Monica where Terekhov derailed the plan to further destabilize the Talbott Quadrant. I don't think they expected Mike to handle Bing and then Crandall without significant loss to her own command either.

Because of those events and growing concern about the Manties moving closer to the environs of Haven they jump-started their own military attack rather than wait until they had all their pieces in place.

Oyster Bay was supposed to lay the groundwork for Haven to finally destroy Manticore to be followed by the Sollie fleet taking out the remnants of the Havenite fleet and then going on to take control of a seriously weakened Republic of Haven.

It was a nicely thought-out plan and could have worked. Without Zilwiki and Cachet getting Simoes to Haven and convincing President Pritchart to visit Manticore instead of invading Manticore it had a very good chance of working. But that one very important glitch in the machine has now thrown everything into jeopardy.

It is obvious that an alliance between Manticore and Haven was, in their thinking, akin to God and Satan kissing and making up. But that is what happened so now they need to jump-start another part of their long-term plan before all the pieces are in place.

CoG didn't give us much in the way of intelligence at the station where McBryde's brother was transferred out. We don't know if there was any intel worth anything on the station or not. Of course the search for data on Mesa is just getting started. Since Houdini was jump-started it is likely that there is data that shouldn't have been left behind. But is it likely that said data will be found by someone who knows its importance?

I would expect that, unlikely as it is, that something will be found in the station or on Mesa that provides a clue that will lead, after lots of permutations, to the Align base of operations whether that is Darius or some other local. When that happens the entire Malign plan starts to shred, not just fray.

I am one of those who thinks that the SL has been damaged beyond repair. We do know the strategy Honor laid out for dealing with the SL in general terms. We haven't been made privy to the details or the tactics invisioned to carry out the strategy. My WAG is that, since the GA doesn't know the depth of the SL's problems yet the GA will pursue a raiding course as soon as Honor has grand fleet ready to move. Only RFC knows what that will entail.

We don't know what the Andies are doing at this time but surely they have been informed that they aren't needed to take on Mesa other than checking in on the planet to see if Mike needs any help. They are probably, along with Mike, going to be major players in the hunt for Malign.

So, that is what I know based on what I remember from the textev. The last two paragraphs are just WAG's and, as such, are as likely to be totally wrong as possibly somewhere in the right galaxy.

Reader Bob wrote:The Malign plan has already started to fray around the edges and it will probably get worse. Things were going as planned right up to Monica where Terekhov derailed the plan to further destabilize the Talbott Quadrant. I don't think they expected Mike to handle Bing and then Crandall without significant loss to her own command either.

Because of those events and growing concern about the Manties moving closer to the environs of Haven they jump-started their own military attack rather than wait until they had all their pieces in place.

Oyster Bay was supposed to lay the groundwork for Haven to finally destroy Manticore to be followed by the Sollie fleet taking out the remnants of the Havenite fleet and then going on to take control of a seriously weakened Republic of Haven.

It was a nicely thought-out plan and could have worked. Without Zilwiki and Cachet getting Simoes to Haven and convincing President Pritchart to visit Manticore instead of invading Manticore it had a very good chance of working. But that one very important glitch in the machine has now thrown everything into jeopardy.

It is obvious that an alliance between Manticore and Haven was, in their thinking, akin to God and Satan kissing and making up. But that is what happened so now they need to jump-start another part of their long-term plan before all the pieces are in place.

CoG didn't give us much in the way of intelligence at the station where McBryde's brother was transferred out. We don't know if there was any intel worth anything on the station or not. Of course the search for data on Mesa is just getting started. Since Houdini was jump-started it is likely that there is data that shouldn't have been left behind. But is it likely that said data will be found by someone who knows its importance?

I would expect that, unlikely as it is, that something will be found in the station or on Mesa that provides a clue that will lead, after lots of permutations, to the Align base of operations whether that is Darius or some other local. When that happens the entire Malign plan starts to shred, not just fray.

I am one of those who thinks that the SL has been damaged beyond repair. We do know the strategy Honor laid out for dealing with the SL in general terms. We haven't been made privy to the details or the tactics invisioned to carry out the strategy. My WAG is that, since the GA doesn't know the depth of the SL's problems yet the GA will pursue a raiding course as soon as Honor has grand fleet ready to move. Only RFC knows what that will entail.

We don't know what the Andies are doing at this time but surely they have been informed that they aren't needed to take on Mesa other than checking in on the planet to see if Mike needs any help. They are probably, along with Mike, going to be major players in the hunt for Malign.

So, that is what I know based on what I remember from the textev. The last two paragraphs are just WAG's and, as such, are as likely to be totally wrong as possibly somewhere in the right galaxy.

As I read the story, the MAlighn got exactly what they bargained for at New Tuscany and Spindle. The wheels start coming off the tracks with Filarta at 2nd Manticore. They expected SLN to be trashed, but hadn't counted on Haven and Manticore coming together.

Also, Oyster Bay wasn't completely successful. They had hoped to catch Manticore's latest generation SDPs still in their building slips, but by the time OB struck, those ships were working up at Trevor's Star. So while crippling Manticore's
infrastructure was a signicant success, it was still not all that was hoped for.

So to summarize, Malighn faces a rejuenated RMN, a Republican Navy that is rapidly recovering its losses from 1 Manticore,
A smaller but still powerful GSN, an Andermani navy with blood in its eye over the assasination attempt on the Emperors brother. To face that, they have a SLN that due to their own mechanizations is a demonstrated paper tiger, a few spiders and streaks. Add in to this Dr. Simoes is busy at Bolthole giving the GA the streaks. Who knows? He may be able to provide Hemple and Foracker enough by way of clues to figure out the Spider.

Overall, not a good strategic situation for the MAlighn.

Don

n7axw wrote:Overall, not a good strategic situation for the MAlighn.

David suggested that the MA doesn't seem very alarmed about this.

Spacekiwi wrote:Or worse. I have seen systems with no password, or the password is the username......

biochem wrote:
Given the level of incompetence and arrogance exhibited to date by senior brass from the SL it would not surprise me at all to find that complete and total external access is allowed with a single password protected entry and that the password is the word "password".

In a certain way, a system with no password is more secure than one with a weak password. As long as noone but the legal user(s) know about the lack of passwort protection - and anyone who wants to break into the system is convinced, there has to be a password ...

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:Overall, not a good strategic situation for the MAlighn.

David suggested that the MA doesn't seem very alarmed about this.

The Detweilers don't seem all that concerned with the multiple setbacks. We keep hearing Albrect think and say that they expected problems to come up as the time of endgame approched. That endgame is still more or less thought of, by the Alignment at least, in terms of possibly centuries. Albrect doesn't expect to live long enough -this from a man who is comtemplating another 100 to perhaps 200 years of life- to see it fully implemented. On the other hand, he does expect to be deeply involved in the deaths of billions and billions of "normals" in the short term as fighting rages around the destruction of the SL and wipeing out of all those pesky neo-barbs like Manticore and Haven that just have to screw up his plans by not going with the plan.

The Alignment is presented as having many plans running as part of shattering the SL such that in addition to the RF as its primary planned successor to the SL, they have multiple operations like what was the whole circus of operations in Talbott Quadrant running in other parts of the SL and fringes of Human space. We, of course, only have a small reference to that and it isn't really clear if Barragos and the Maya Sector actually is a direct Alignment major thrust or the result of only one of perhaps hundreds of ploys put into operation to destabilize the SL and any potentialy powerfull opponent by using them as a means of hurting the chances of anybody making a meaningful effort to stop the Alignment plans.

It could be that they are now starting to be being shown as so caught up in their own arrogance that they are generating a serious reality distortion field and are just brushing off the "minor" problems as inevitable little bumps on the road to victory. Time for variatons of Jack McBride to begin to surface. Then there is the possibility of someone who is either inside the Onion or who has devined it purpose and has set about subverting sections of it to make themselves the Galactic Overloard sometime in the next 30 years by taking over the RF or the Alignment itself.

Having reread the descriptions of the heads of state for the RF, the though surfaces that one or more of them may just be a bit too good for the whole Alpha Line scenario and Albrect and his boys may find they have a Pharaoh rising.

Brigade XO wrote:
It could be that they are now starting to be being shown as so caught up in their own arrogance that they are generating a serious reality distortion field and are just brushing off the "minor" problems as inevitable little bumps on the road to victory. Time for variatons of Jack McBride to begin to surface. Then there is the possibility of someone who is either inside the Onion or who has devined it purpose and has set about subverting sections of it to make themselves the Galactic Overloard sometime in the next 30 years by taking over the RF or the Alignment itself.

Not very likely. At least, that's my reading of this section of Chapter 26, SoF:

Shadow of Freedom, Chapter 26 wrote:“The problem is it could have been a lot better, too. We always counted on Beowulf supporting Manticore—as long as the Manties lasted, anyway—and that was part of our calculus for the League’s disintegration. But we’d hoped the Sollies would be able to at least give the Manties a run for their money. In fact, they were supposed to weaken Manticore to a point that let the Havenites plow it under at last. Nouveau Paris certainly wasn’t supposed to end up deciding to help the Manties kick the crap out of the League, instead! And by the time Beowulf started to figure out what was going on and began actively looking for military allies against us, Manticore wasn’t supposed to be around for them to ally with, much less the damned Havenites! Which doesn’t even consider the fact that no one was supposed to know about the Alignment’s existence until we were well into Phase Three, and we’re not even out of Phase One yet.”

It seems to indicate, that the Detweilers, at least, have no intention to develop your reality distortion field ... else this complaining of Albrecht Detweiler wouldn't make a lot of sense ...

Eagleeye wrote:In a certain way, a system with no password is more secure than one with a weak password. As long as noone but the legal user(s) know about the lack of passwort protection - and anyone who wants to break into the system is convinced, there has to be a password ...

Security by Obscurity has never and can never work.

The E wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:In a certain way, a system with no password is more secure than one with a weak password. As long as noone but the legal user(s) know about the lack of passwort protection - and anyone who wants to break into the system is convinced, there has to be a password ...

Security by Obscurity has never and can never work.

Which was, of course, a major part of the MAlign's plan.