Question about Beowulf tactics

George J. Smith wrote:Zakharra, SWM


What we need is a tongue-in-cheek smiley, obviously the rolling-eyes smiley isn't up to the job

If you meant that to mean tongue-in-cheek, yeah, could be. Most people seem to use rolling eyes as something akin to "Duh!". Sorry for misunderstanding!

George J. Smith wrote:

SWM wrote:Snip...
Using Manticoran ships defending the Manticoran wormhole is absolutely the correct thing to do. There is no reason for Beowulf to pretend that those ships belong to Beowulf, and no way that such a lie could survive any kind of investigation.
I still don't understand why you are so insistent that Beowulf should claim to control those ships.

But what about Manticore trading the ships to Beowulf in exchange for the rebuilding and humanitarian efforts extended by Beowulf

Zakharra wrote: Some of their most modern and advanced and powerful ships? Not a chance that would be believed except by apologists. Especially since the biggest threat to the SEM was the Solarian League. Giving that many of their ships to a Solarian League Core world would be seen as treason by Beowulf and actively aiding and abetting the enemy.
Also it would have looked like a land grab by Manticore, especially if the vote to secede from the SL was announced while the Beowulf still had those 'loaned' SD(P)s.
Something like that would have turned public opinion even more against Beowulf and I highly doubt they would have gotten anywhere close to 1/4 of the Delegates voting against the investigation measure.

Just for a historical perspective, see the history of the German warships Goeben and Breslau, which ended up serving as "Turkish" warships, with the German crews wearing fezzes (IIRC).

British didn't buy it either....

See here for the fascinating story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pursuit_of ... nd_Breslau

We are just going to have to wait until the next book.

I will just add that if the SL did make a play already- by the point Anton shows up to speak with Honor- I would have expected there to have been some mention of it.

Why? Because it would have gone one of three ways:

One: The SL was successful, they hold Beowulf and are in the process of "helping" the population throw off the insiduios SEM puppet masters who were controling the government. SLN is now stripping Beowulf of any of that Manti tech they so desperatly need (good luck getting it into production within a year guys) and have some credable fleet presence attempting to blockade or at least annoy the SEM fleet at the Sigma Draconis terminus.

Two.one: The SLN got it's ass not only kicked but taken away from it when they attempted to run a naval force into to the Beowulf system to either "observe" the election or to "correct" the obviously SEM manipulated vote. SL Member systems and Protectorates are falling over themselves to distance themselves from the SL bureaucracy.

Two . two: They showed up, freaked out when the Moriaty system lit them up like a light show and ran. SL Members systems etc start scrambling to get clear of becoming targets.

Three: The Alignment managed to pull off the EE and Beowulf suffered massive planitary damage physical and enviornmental damage.
The surviving BSDF probably asks the GA to come in for humanitarian support and direct military support to keep the vultures off the system. If the planet is too far damaged along with what remains of the orbital infrastructure, the survivors (having already gone berserk trying to kill every SLN ship they can get at in normal space around the star) ask to link up with the GA. Of course this also means that SEM and Grayson have lost their best supply and rebuilding source to recover thier own infrastructure.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Don,

I couldn't find the distance of the Beowulf terminus in ART, whether its 6 or 10 Light Hours out [the latter IIRC], but the longer response time would still be less than the time to bring up the alpha nodes, for a response time at best of just over half an hour; the message from Beowulf then powering up the alpha nodes and the hyper transit.

I've already argued waiting until the SLN is ~90 minutes past the hyper limit would be better tactically, besides scouting for any mouse trap force [after what the RHN did to Filaretta, the SLN might try the same thing], though they might also try approaching from 7-8 different places on the hyper limit, to overwhelm the nominal defense, but my confidence in the BSDF means they're prepared for this too.

L

I've looked for this too, the only reference I can find is when Al-Fundai (sp?) is discussing with Teague the possibility that the SLN will attempt to steamroller Beowulf while Manticore's SDs are out at the Beowulf terminus, "a couple of light hours away" in Mission of Honor.

Another possible complication is where is the planet in relation to the terminus, the star, and the resonance zone of the terminus at the point in time (that an attack would be made)? Just as the position of planets Sphinx and Manticore were discussed in At All Costs, Beowulf spends half its orbit inside the resonance zone (as well as always being inside the hyper limit), and the other half on the far (for varying degrees of far) side of the star from the terminus.

SWM wrote:

SWM wrote:Snip...
Using Manticoran ships defending the Manticoran wormhole is absolutely the correct thing to do. There is no reason for Beowulf to pretend that those ships belong to Beowulf, and no way that such a lie could survive any kind of investigation.

I still don't understand why you are so insistent that Beowulf should claim to control those ships.

George J. Smith wrote:But what about Manticore trading the ships to Beowulf in exchange for the rebuilding and humanitarian efforts extended by Beowulf

So Manticore gives Beowulf enough ships to triple their fleet, and loans them the crews until they can train them up, and this just happens to do this just after Beowulf has been informed of the impending SLN fleet transit to Manticore? That stinks of conspiracy. The League would cry that Manticore was bribing Beowulf--or worse, coercing Beowulf, that the Beowulf officers weren't really in control and the Manticorans were forcing Beowulf to conform to their wishes.

I still have not heard a good reason why Beowulf should claim (truthfully or fraudulently) that the ships were theirs. The wormhole belonged to Manticore and the Solarian fleet was trying to execute a sneak attack on Manticore. I don't see any reason why Manticore should not be the ones blocking the League sneak attack.

First of all, Beowulf was protecting Beowulf citizens at the terminus. If they are not resspoinsible for defending the terminus, why are their 36 SDs out there in the first place. If they are, (and they were), then it is reasonable that they would utilize whatever resources they had available to continue to defend the terminus.

Hi all,

I'm starting out with a nit: Beowulf is installing Mycroft, not Moriarity. The two systems are similar, but Mycroft with its FTL compnent is vastly more capable.

Secondly, Beowulf has no need to pretend anything to anybody. The vote is past and I presume that Beowulf is now a GA member.

Let the League now put that in its pipe and smoke it!

Don

fallsfromtrees wrote:First of all, Beowulf was protecting Beowulf citizens at the terminus. If they are not resspoinsible for defending the terminus, why are their 36 SDs out there in the first place. If they are, (and they were), then it is reasonable that they would utilize whatever resources they had available to continue to defend the terminus.

Yes, Beowulf was protecting Beowulf citizens at the terminus when they confronted the SLN.

Yes, they have been responsible for protecting the terminus, under an ancient agreement with Manticore (but the owner of the terminus was Manticore).

Yes, it would be reasonable for Beowulf to continue to defend the terminus, although it does cause complications when the force you are blocking is that of your own star nation.

My point is that it is also perfectly reasonable for Manticore to block the SLN from using its terminus to sneak attack Manticore. Given that this is true, there is no good reason for Beowulf to pretend that it isn't Manticore's navy sitting there. So why go through any pretense? It's the Royal Manticoran Navy, and there is no reason to say it isn't. In fact, it makes a particular point that Manticore wanted to impress on the Solarian League. Manticore could have easily wiped out the Solarian fleet. And they had perfectly good reasons for doing so--they had proof positive that the Solarians were there to attack their home system. No one in the galaxy could have said that Manticore didn't have just cause to blow them out of the sky. But Manticore didn't do it--they let the Solarians go. It makes the point that, even after extreme provocation, Manticore was trying to be reasonable.

One more point which I just remembered. The Manticoran ships came through the terminus after the Solarians showed up. Then they snuck up on the Solarians under stealth. Beowulfans couldn't have transferred onto the Manticoran ships without giving everything away.

SWM wrote:One more point which I just remembered. The Manticoran ships came through the terminus after the Solarians showed up. Then they snuck up on the Solarians under stealth. Beowulfans couldn't have transferred onto the Manticoran ships without giving everything away.

That's specious. I only suggested one person, and it would have taken a single ship going out to one of the freighters to transfer that person.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:One more point which I just remembered. The Manticoran ships came through the terminus after the Solarians showed up. Then they snuck up on the Solarians under stealth. Beowulfans couldn't have transferred onto the Manticoran ships without giving everything away.

That's specious. I only suggested one person, and it would have taken a single ship going out to one of the freighters to transfer that person.

But the officer you want to transfer is aboard the Beowulfan navy ships near the Solarian ships. The ship you want to transfer this officer to is approaching under stealth. Exactly how do you think you can do this transfer without the Sollies seeing?