Logic behind splitting Lacoon?

SharkHunter wrote:How about a "reverse Laccoon" for 3"? I'm thinking of the sequence in aRT where they grabbed about 4 termini in a row. So the reverse sequence goes something like this "how would you like to trade with us instead? we don't even rake off the top when we deliver top of the line GA goods to your system doorstep", and if you sign here on the dotted line, we make OFS go away.

Zakharra wrote:In Lacoon I and II, they grabbed control of more than just 4. Lacoon II is they grab control of as many as they can reach and hold, no matter who owns them, SL or independent.

Yes, that is correct. Reread the section, I thought they'd taken four but Commordore Magellan's squadrons are the sequence I was referring to:

A Rising Thunder wrote:Of course, he hadn’t had to make the trip the long way. Instead, he’d moved transited from the Manticoran Junction to Beowulf, then crossed sixty-three light-years from Beowulf to the Roulette System, then transited the Roulette-Limbo hyper bridge and crossed another forty-nine light-years of hyperspace from Limbo to Agueda.

Spreading sunshine and light the entire way, he reflected. Amazing how unpopular we are.

Amazing, perhaps, but scarcely surprising. Roulette, Limbo, and Agueda were all independent (or at least nominally so) star systems.[\quote]

SharkHunter wrote:Independent, AKA the kind of system that might benefit from being freed from the OFS skim-off, assisting the Manties in setting up their own junction termini/inspections a la Fearless at Basilisk, and getting back into the business of doing business with the GA instead of the SL for a while. Given that Captain Paiffi gives some grudging respect to the Commodore for getting his people out of any line of fire, I'm sure there's be an amount of additional respect if freighters started piling up in the system, and the GA tells him "look, why don't we use our LACs to help you encourage folks to get inspected, free of contraband and genetic slaves (to encourage the slime to stay out of the system), and let some of these good independent operating folks get on their way..."

Meanwhile informing any Sollie freighters that their presence in not required, or if they have gone to active commerce raiding, informing them of the change of ownership, and sending them off to Manticore to be condemned by the Admiralty courts, with prize money accruing to the wormhole crews.

To this point we have not been shown any commerce raiding by SEM connected to Lacoon. Take and hold "other people's" worm holes, yes. Effectivly interdict SLN warships and Solly flagged merchant shipping from using them, yes. Actually siezing or destroying SLN flagged merchants, no

This alone causes a lot of problems for the systems involved. The very least is the lack of SL flagged ships being ABLE TO USE THE WORMHOLES. I didn't see any mention of said SL flagged ships being seized, just they were turned away to make any travel through hyperspace. Theoreticaly any SL flagged ship comming into a system only via hyperspace would be able to both make deliveries/pickups from the system. What they could then effectivly do with said materials is another question. Obviously any SLN ship arriving via hyper is going to have a problem because the local RMN force is not going to let it challange the hold on the wormhole. Would the local commander just attack it out-of-hand or would they warn it off and only fight if attacked? Probably warn it off but until 2nd Maticore with Filerta unlikely to call of it to surrender or attack it. Post Filerta, any SLN ships becomes and enemy combatant and will be attacked if not surrendered.

We need more information and more detail, just like always.

Brigade XO wrote:To this point we have not been shown any commerce raiding by SEM connected to Lacoon. Take and hold "other people's" worm holes, yes. Effectivly interdict SLN warships and Solly flagged merchant shipping from using them, yes. Actually siezing or destroying SLN flagged merchants, no

This alone causes a lot of problems for the systems involved. The very least is the lack of SL flagged ships being ABLE TO USE THE WORMHOLES. I didn't see any mention of said SL flagged ships being seized, just they were turned away to make any travel through hyperspace. Theoreticaly any SL flagged ship comming into a system only via hyperspace would be able to both make deliveries/pickups from the system. What they could then effectivly do with said materials is another question. Obviously any SLN ship arriving via hyper is going to have a problem because the local RMN force is not going to let it challange the hold on the wormhole. Would the local commander just attack it out-of-hand or would they warn it off and only fight if attacked? Probably warn it off but until 2nd Maticore with Filerta unlikely to call of it to surrender or attack it. Post Filerta, any SLN ships becomes and enemy combatant and will be attacked if not surrendered.

We need more information and more detail, just like always.

Hi Brigade XO,

I think we can presume that the SEM is doing some commerce raiding simply because that was part of the operational plan for Lacoon two. I doubt that it is very extensive since the SL was depending upon Manticore's merchant hulls to move a majority of its commerce.

I would have to go back and look to be sure, but Lacoon 1 was seizing wormholes for the purpose of getting Manticore's merchant marine home from Solly space. But did it also include denying Soliarian merchant shipping access to the wormholes?

Don

I would have to go back and look to be sure, but Lacoon 1 was seizing wormholes for the purpose of getting Manticore's merchant marine home from Solly space. But did it also include denying Soliarian merchant shipping access to the wormholes?

Yes. See the Zunker Incident in ART.

Hi Duckk,

I was going to mention that incident, kudos for pointing it out.

I suspect much of the initial commerce 'raiding' might simply be gathering up all the SL freighters that show up to use the wormholes.

Given how much of Solly cargo uses the wormholes, I'd imagine considerable numbers of what remains of SL freighters would find themselves stuck, being picked up by waiting LAC's before they could hyper back out and quickly boarded by waiting pinnaces.

This should easily wreck the projections by the Commerce and Treasury mandarins [or accelerate them], dramatically increasing the anticipated economic pain while the inherent time delays throw some SL members even further into making more very bad decisions because the information they're based on is so out of date.

Unless they get more accurate information from the GA, of course.

L

Duckk wrote:

I would have to go back and look to be sure, but Lacoon 1 was seizing wormholes for the purpose of getting Manticore's merchant marine home from Solly space. But did it also include denying Soliarian merchant shipping access to the wormholes?

Yes. See the Zunker Incident in ART.

Also in ART you see a MMM captain patiently explaing to the Shadwell Corporation's manager on Mendelschon why he can't load and take away for delivery 1.6 million tons of merchandise. I doubt that is all one single type of product. It probably is a combination of Mendelschon goods and shipments for elsewhere that have been delivered to the warehouses at Mendelschon for pickup by other ships as part of a regular set of trade routes.

He also says he is going home empty but that may not mean that is his entire capacity. While Mendelschon may be his last stop before heading back to Manticore, he may have already refused shipments at an earlier port and this one is actualy on his way home as part of the fastest course. He would have off-loaded anything due to Mendelschon and Shadwell in particular. That would have meant running light getting here but unless there was goods already waiting for him at the prior stop for Mendelschon and/or Shadwell, he would not have loaded anything else.

1.6 million tons is a lot of anything. Given how much of the SL freight has been traveling in MMM shipping, much of what had been moving is just going to stop moving as there isn't the capasity to keep it going. Companies- all sorts of companies- are going to fail because their access to both markets and to out-system sources of product(s) have effectivly vanished. That is not just manufactures. It is the shipping companies that handled the shipping even if it wasn't in transports they owned. It is also the stores or distributors that handled the goods being stopped in any given system. Right up there is the failure of or at least massive loses for multiple insurance companies who had policies on the goods being moved.
There is also the amount of time between the MMM ships being recalled and when both the news of the recall and the actual knowledge of what isn't going where hits different systems and companies throughout the trade networks and systems. The news travels by starship. It is not as if you company many for CSX in Los Angeles can get on his cell phone or land line and tell the office Boston that all the container shipments that were supposed to be comming via rail have been put on hold because all of the leased railcars that would have been used to carry them have been taken out of service and moved away from where CSX can get hold of them. The dispatcher is going to have to put a message in the hands of someone like FedEx and it gets driven to Boston. Even if it would go by FedEx Air, it is still going to have to go by some other carrier.
There will still be some movement (and large batches) but there will be massive disruption as some priority of shipping is worked out. At the very least the cost of any given item is going to skyrocket as companies scramble to get some kind of transport.

The SLN will still have it's own ships, even logistics freighters and some capacity (relativly minor) on warships which may be headed in the right directions but this is just a minor fix. Also think about where SLN is going to have to get the existing people in the Reserves and new people to 1st train and then move to man the Reserve Fleet ships recommissioned. The transportation system just broke. SLN can sieze or take possession for Emergency Transport all sorts of ships but moving hundreds of thousands of Naval personnel (including recruits ) plus "critical" materials just got to be a massive problem because the numbers of ships went way below what is needed to sustain the required traffic.

It is like 80% of the rail, truck. merchant shipping and air freight companies in the world took all of their equipment and people to Australia. Heck, think 50%.

Chaos. Now fight a war with that handicap.

--snipping--

Brigade XO wrote:...
The SLN will still have it's own ships, even logistics freighters and some capacity (relativly minor) on warships which may be headed in the right directions but this is just a minor fix. Also think about where SLN is going to have to get the existing people in the Reserves and new people to 1st train and then move to man the Reserve Fleet ships recommissioned. The transportation system just broke. SLN can sieze or take possession for Emergency Transport all sorts of ships but moving hundreds of thousands of Naval personnel (including recruits ) plus "critical" materials just got to be a massive problem because the numbers of ships went way below what is needed to sustain the required traffic.

It is like 80% of the rail, truck. merchant shipping and air freight companies in the world took all of their equipment and people to Australia. Heck, think 50%.

Chaos. Now fight a war with that handicap.

Hats off brilliant analysis and comparison.

Then toss in, "oh, and those tax revenues and under-the-table profits you USED to skim from the freight moving out towards the Outback? you now get to try to retool your wooden armada and rehire your reservists less 70% of that revenue."

Does anyone really think that all of the folks who've been sucking from the graft teat(s) for generations aren't going to insist on keeping that last 30% for themselves, or threaten to depose/mutiny against those further up the ladder? than themselves? The Mandarins are already toast, butter side down, they just haven't admitted it yet.

Hi guys,

Kudos for the excellent points.

Bear in mind we're talking about tens of thousands of freighters, perhaps a hundred thousand or two total that were formerly servicing the SL; so the SLN's logistic support ships aren't even a drop in the bucket before getting into the textev that the SLN doesn't have the logistic support of deep raids like the GA has developed.

Given most freighters travel only 3-4 LY per day, many long routes not using wormholes will take at least a few month's to discover their cargoes aren't arriving or being delivered if they don't get the news from some faster means like a db [mail etc] or newsie.

These shipments could have been planned month's or even a year or more in advance just as in the days of sail between the orient and Europe etc.

One of the things we have to consider happening in the future is the rate at which information is dispersed, leaving aside propaganda, since the truth can be far deadlier all by itself.

News of Spindle from February 1922, and Lacoon 1, which began in March ought to have reached much of the verge and Solarian shells without the mandarins knowing or controlling it, long before news of Filareta's fate reached them, which since it was public would, could, and should have been spread weeks before he showed up; so they're already primed to consider a greater set of options than the mandarins would fear in their worse nightmares.

Despite being only 5 days from Beowulf by db or newsie [40 LY], Sol didn't find out what happened to Filareta until very late in June when the battle according to the Honorverse wikia was June 11th; quite curious since the first reporters should have left Manticore no later than the day after Admiral Tang, so feel free to speculate over the time delay.

So how quickly has the information spread throughout the verge and protectorates?

Granted the news from the Lynx terminus takes a couple weeks to reach Spindle, but the news via the other Manticoran termini could already have been reaching nearby systems in the verge and SL shells, from Maya and Erewhon etc, NTM freebie newsies spreading the news everywhere they think they can may some money on it, or GA db's acting as newsies if not indirect propagandists, since using even a DD as a newsie would be considered rather gauche.

I've pointed out before that the 5 day delay reaching Sol means that at least half of the SL is going to have up to 10 days to assimilate the SEM's/GA's messages before the mandarins can begin to answer them, a very significant advantage that gathers weight every day as more information adds to what's already been reported, making the E&I propaganda ten days later laughable, which ought to have been mentioned before now by Malachi Abruzzi.

RFC has yet to demonstrate the news dissemination advantage the SEM WHJ and all the other wormhole bridges it controls, that greatly enables the GA in countering the SL's propaganda which the mandarins know is going to inevitably fail them in a few month's.

One wonders if RFC is preparing "a perfect storm" combination of various bad news for the mandarins; besides the destruction of the BF reserve and many more members leaving the league, plus the apparent blockade of the core of the SL by the GA's control of wormhole bridges to the rest putting them 2-3 month's further behind the latest news; the effective cessation of most custom fees to finance the federal system since collection has become almost impossible under the new circumstances; the general loss of the OFS 'service fees' due to the same collection problem NTM since the news from Sol might take a month or more the reach the verge directly while the GA operates from interior wormhole routes, so the protectorates are throwing off the OFS and transtellars before the core based transtellars can react or make better offers.

So I could see the mandarins pushing a direct tax, despite their foreknowledge of how it could backfire; only to have the MAlign pull out all the stops in seeing to it most of the rest of the league bolt, whether they agree Beowulf was right to secede, or the GA pose a real threat.

I could see the attack on Beowulf, the direct tax and the loss of the BF reserve all combine to convince most members now was the time to look for something better.

It's been argued that the barbarians conquering the western roman empire offered the locals a much better deal by simply eliminating roman taxes, regulations, and inflation.

That's enough for now.

L


[quote="SharkHunter"]--snipping--
[quote="Brigade XO"]...
The SLN will still have it's own ships, even logistics freighters and some capacity (relativly minor) on warships which may be headed in the right directions but this is just a minor fix. Also think about where SLN is going to have to get the existing people in the Reserves and new people to 1st train and then move to man the Reserve Fleet ships recommissioned. The transportation system just broke. SLN can sieze or take possession for Emergency Transport all sorts of ships but moving hundreds of thousands of Naval personnel (including recruits ) plus "critical" materials just got to be a massive problem because the numbers of ships went way below what is needed to sustain the required traffic.

It is like 80% of the rail, truck. merchant shipping and air freight companies in the world took all of their equipment and people to Australia. Heck, think 50%.

Chaos. Now fight a war with that handicap.[/quote]Hats off brilliant analysis and comparison.

Then toss in, "oh, and those tax revenues and under-the-table profits you USED to skim from the freight moving out towards the Outback? you now get to try to retool your wooden armada and rehire your reservists less 70% of that revenue."

Does anyone really think that all of the folks who've been sucking from the graft teat(s) for generations aren't going to insist on keeping that last 30% for themselves, or threaten to depose/mutiny against those further up the ladder? than themselves? The Mandarins are already toast, butter side down, they just haven't admitted it yet.[/quote]

Can anyone justify why Manticore's merchant fleet makes up more than a trivial fraction of the League's shipping? Including all their dependencies, the League's planets outnumber Manticore's about a 1000-to-1. Now, I get that a lot of ships would be registered as Manty for the lower tolls at the Junction, but when the order comes for them to come 'home' to Manticore, I'd expect their owners to tell their skippers to get right back to work....

Bill Woods wrote:Can anyone justify why Manticore's merchant fleet makes up more than a trivial fraction of the League's shipping? Including all their dependencies, the League's planets outnumber Manticore's about a 1000-to-1. Now, I get that a lot of ships would be registered as Manty for the lower tolls at the Junction, but when the order comes for them to come 'home' to Manticore, I'd expect their owners to tell their skippers to get right back to work....

Oh, they're going back to work... mostly in the Republic of Haven, which has been stated as being the SEM's big new economic trading power as well as military ally. Plus I imagine that there might be an upsurge in trading in all areas of Silesia, Talbott, etc. that are in firm SEM control, plus the Erewhon / Maya Sector/ Torch treaty group. Within a reasonable period of time, they might even start trading with the Meyer's sector. I would go for that anyway, once the sector is a secured allegiant power, likely with some ONI intelligence assets as part of the bridge crews, etc. and nice temporary junction fee discounts, etc.