Core world vulnerability

Theemile wrote:I can imagine there are several SLN Taskforces whose leadership will side or defect with their fleets to the Ren. Factor at pivitol moments coming up. A fleet or 2 like Crandal's will sure make a difference against the rest of the SDFs and the SLN.

It's much more difficult to arrange for the defection of a moderate or large formation than it is to corrupt a single flag officer. Crandall's force had half a million personnel, presumably drawn from all over the core. An Admiral wanting to take his task force 'home' to Visigoth will have problems if only 1% or 5% of his crews and captains came from Visigoth and the rest of them came from Sol, Beowulf and wherever else.

Whatever happens, it's going to be messy. I can't help but think of the Insurrection novel from Starfire, probably because it had a Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet split going on. The potential for self-destruction is enormous, though I expect institutional inertia to hold the Battle Fleet together as long as nothing happens to Sol. Frontier Fleet, however...

n7axw wrote:It seems to me that the key to this thing will be for the GA to identify the RF as an opponent.

That should be no real problem since the RF's goal is to be a "bigger and better" successor to the League and the GA goal is to break the League into small successor states with no single successor "large enough to cause problems" -- IIRC Honor's strategic outline.

munroburton wrote:It's much more difficult to arrange for the defection of a moderate or large formation than it is to corrupt a single flag officer.

Adm Rozhak seems to be managing just fine with the FF Task Force assigned to Maya. Granted he's had the time for a gradual vetting and purging of his task force personnel.

I think it will be easier for a charismatic leader to take an entire fleet or task force with them when they defect; especially if not defecting from the SLN or surrendering is patently insane.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:It's much more difficult to arrange for the defection of a moderate or large formation than it is to corrupt a single flag officer.

Adm Rozhak seems to be managing just fine with the FF Task Force assigned to Maya. Granted he's had the time for a gradual vetting and purging of his task force personnel.

I think it will be easier for a charismatic leader to take an entire fleet or task force with them when they defect; especially if not defecting from the SLN or surrendering is patently insane.

Roszak is jumping through a lot of hoops to cover up his personnel assignments and has a friendly independent star nation laundering his ships and crews. It's because of how difficult it is for him and Barregos to deploy their new ships, even with the Erewhonese Navy as a mask, that I believe it'd be almost impossible for a Battle Fleet formation with no warning or with a recently suborned commander to pull off such a defection without objectors.

This isn't a few score false-flagged ships with a few thousand carefully vetted personnel, it's hundreds of Battle Fleet's most prestigious ships with hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be torn between their primary loyalty to the SL and their secondary loyalty to their homeworld.

Having said that... I, for one, would like to see Esther McQueen's Battle Fleet equivalent.

munroburton wrote:Roszak is jumping through a lot of hoops to cover up his personnel assignments and has a friendly independent star nation laundering his ships and crews. It's because of how difficult it is for him and Barregos to deploy their new ships, even with the Erewhonese Navy as a mask, that I believe it'd be almost impossible for a Battle Fleet formation with no warning or with a recently suborned commander to pull off such a defection without objectors.

He still has the problem of preventing a single disgruntled Spacer Basic wring home to Admiral Mom. It wouldn't even take a disgruntled spacer, one too proud of his new ship can spill the beans just as effectively.

munroburton wrote:This isn't a few score false-flagged ships with a few thousand carefully vetted personnel, it's hundreds of Battle Fleet's most prestigious ships with hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be torn between their primary loyalty to the SL and their secondary loyalty to their homeworld.

It is also a few hundreds of thousands of people facing destruction by the GA or defection to a system that has defected/seceded from the control of the Mandarins demanding suicidal missions from their commanders.

Also, a fleet or task force commander only needs to convince a majority of his sub-commanders to defect. The rank-and-file are going to follow orders. A smart commander would discharge any truly disgruntled personnel and ship them home.

munroburton wrote:Having said that... I, for one, would like to see Esther McQueen's Battle Fleet equivalent.

Weird Harold wrote:He still has the problem of preventing a single disgruntled Spacer Basic wring home to Admiral Mom. It wouldn't even take a disgruntled spacer, one too proud of his new ship can spill the beans just as effectively.

Luckily he has the power of plot to count on.

kzt wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:He still has the problem of preventing a single disgruntled Spacer Basic wring home to Admiral Mom. It wouldn't even take a disgruntled spacer, one too proud of his new ship can spill the beans just as effectively.

Luckily he has the power of plot to count on.

I would also add the likely hood that FF spacers have been quietly encouraged to have their families join them in Maya. Thus the boasting letter from Spacer first class is delivered to CPO (ret.) at his home on Smoking Frog.

Navy tends to run int the family, and with Prolong their dad/uncle is still on active duty. The loss at Torch was unprecedented for centuries, FF doesn't lose multiple major combat vessels in a fight with a large death toll of SLN members.

Now you can argue that this got missed due to the other insanity that was going on, but I don't think the time lines up that way. And Lt Jones dad the Rear Admiral is still going to ask some questions about how the story he gets in the official notification doesn't match what he was told by his kid about what and whose ship he was one.

Will Battlefleet's personell's primary loyalty be to Solarian League and secondarily to their home worlds, or is it the other way around? Especially after their superiors put so many of their people in position where they couldn't fight back.

Don

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:It seems to me that the key to this thing will be for the GA to identify the RF as an opponent.

That should be no real problem since the RF's goal is to be a "bigger and better" successor to the League and the GA goal is to break the League into small successor states with no single successor "large enough to cause problems" -- IIRC Honor's strategic outline.

I doubt the GA is going to stomp on the larger successor states of the defunct SL just because it's too 'big'. If said new state declared itself neutral to the GA, the GA has no military reason to go after it.