The Grand Alliance Grand Attack

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:As for why the SLN didn't know about them--Technodyne is not owned by the SLN. Technodyne has lots of R&D that the SLN doesn't know about. They didn't know about the pods or extended missiles that Technodyne produced, either, and we know for sure that those came from Technodyne.

Did they? We know that Technodyne provided them. I don't think we know that they designed and manufactured them.

You are correct that we don't know for certain that they designed and manufactured the pods and extended-range missiles. But it seems likely, since they obviously had the production lines for them. They are already supplying them to the SLN. They are also supplying cataphracts, so they must have had production lines for cataphracts, as well. I can't imagine that managers would not notice that they were building something they had never designed and had no idea where the design came from. As I said, the Alignment would have set this up so there was a clear paper trail of R&D for these technologies. If we know Technodyne is producing cataphracts, I see no reason to assume that the first cataphracts we saw didn't come from Technodyne.

My reason for doubting that they were produced on Darius is that Darius and its tech needs to be kept as isolated as possible. Too much traffic out of there and the routes become known.

While I realize this logic shouldn't be taken as absolute, it does lead me to think that the manufacturing actually took place on Yildun.

I'm sure that the MAlign knows how to manufacture the missiles at Darius. It's just I think that they were probably doing it elsewhere.

Don

n7axw wrote:Darius and its tech needs to be kept as isolated as possible. Too much traffic out of there and the routes become known.
Don

You could have a Trillion ships going in and out of Darius. No one would ever know. Thing called Hyperspace. Can go anywhere. No one has a clue where you are from or going to next. You cannot track through hyperspace.

wastedfly wrote:

n7axw wrote:Darius and its tech needs to be kept as isolated as possible. Too much traffic out of there and the routes become known.
Don

You could have a Trillion ships going in and out of Darius. No one would ever know. Thing called Hyperspace. Can go anywhere. No one has a clue where you are from or going to next. You cannot track through hyperspace.

In one of the books, you have a captain who has a pirate hunter civilian ship equipped with military grade sensors tracking someone through hyperspace until he finds the destination system. It was when Haven was going to ambush Honor at the Marsh system. She used the knowledge of the ambush force to talk the IAN into backing off until things were resolved.

Tracking in hyperspace is hard because the high particle densities cloud the sensors, but not impossible. Hundreds of ships, maybe, but not likely even a few thousand would manage to keep it secret.

SWM wrote:As for why the SLN didn't know about them--Technodyne is not owned by the SLN. Technodyne has lots of R&D that the SLN doesn't know about. They didn't know about the pods or extended missiles that Technodyne produced, either, and we know for sure that those came from Technodyne.

JohnRoth wrote:
Did they? We know that Technodyne provided them. I don't think we know that they designed and manufactured them.

SWM wrote:You are correct that we don't know for certain that they designed and manufactured the pods and extended-range missiles. But it seems likely, since they obviously had the production lines for them. They are already supplying them to the SLN. They are also supplying cataphracts, so they must have had production lines for cataphracts, as well. I can't imagine that managers would not notice that they were building something they had never designed and had no idea where the design came from. As I said, the Alignment would have set this up so there was a clear paper trail of R&D for these technologies. If we know Technodyne is producing cataphracts, I see no reason to assume that the first cataphracts we saw didn't come from Technodyne.

My bolding. Do we know that they are supplying them to the SLN, or did they just supply them to Filareta? Knowing that his entire staff was either going to be dead or prisoner and therefore not able to pass the info back to the actual SLN

n7axw wrote:My reason for doubting that they were produced on Darius is that Darius and its tech needs to be kept as isolated as possible. Too much traffic out of there and the routes become known.

While I realize this logic shouldn't be taken as absolute, it does lead me to think that the manufacturing actually took place on Yildun.

I'm sure that the MAlign knows how to manufacture the missiles at Darius. It's just I think that they were probably doing it elsewhere.

Don

If the MAlign moved to Darius, which is the most likely destination, then their intelligence and C&C loops have to go to and from Darius, possibly with suitable cutouts.

A secret arsenal planet, after all, isn't of much use if you can't get the munitions into the field where they're needed without blowing your cover.

SWM made a comment a bit earlier about questions being raised within Technodyne if someone just handed them the designs and said: here, manufacture this. I don't think that's an issue: it's quite possible that Technodyne works this way anyway: they've isolated the R&D from the manufacturing function, so the manufacturing people might very well not know where the designs are coming from. In any case, Technodyne is known for losing the paperwork on excess warships they supposedly built for the SLN and which show up later in unlikely places.

That said, I think the initial missiles came from Darius, with Technodyne getting the plans later, when it seemed like they needed them so that people wouldn't question who manufactured them.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:As for why the SLN didn't know about them--Technodyne is not owned by the SLN. Technodyne has lots of R&D that the SLN doesn't know about. They didn't know about the pods or extended missiles that Technodyne produced, either, and we know for sure that those came from Technodyne.

JohnRoth wrote:
Did they? We know that Technodyne provided them. I don't think we know that they designed and manufactured them.

SWM wrote:You are correct that we don't know for certain that they designed and manufactured the pods and extended-range missiles. But it seems likely, since they obviously had the production lines for them. They are already supplying them to the SLN. They are also supplying cataphracts, so they must have had production lines for cataphracts, as well. I can't imagine that managers would not notice that they were building something they had never designed and had no idea where the design came from. As I said, the Alignment would have set this up so there was a clear paper trail of R&D for these technologies. If we know Technodyne is producing cataphracts, I see no reason to assume that the first cataphracts we saw didn't come from Technodyne.

My bolding. Do we know that they are supplying them to the SLN, or did they just supply them to Filareta? Knowing that his entire staff was either going to be dead or prisoner and therefore not able to pass the info back to the actual SLN

Admiral Kingsford certainly knows about them. He said:

A Rising Thunder, Chapter 31 wrote:
"Considering all of that, and considering the pod-launched missiles Technodyne made available to Eleventh Fleet..."

DDHvi wrote:

wastedfly wrote:You could have a Trillion ships going in and out of Darius. No one would ever know. Thing called Hyperspace. Can go anywhere. No one has a clue where you are from or going to next. You cannot track through hyperspace.

In one of the books, you have a captain who has a pirate hunter civilian ship equipped with military grade sensors tracking someone through hyperspace until he finds the destination system. It was when Haven was going to ambush Honor at the Marsh system. She used the knowledge of the ambush force to talk the IAN into backing off until things were resolved.

Tracking in hyperspace is hard because the high particle densities cloud the sensors, but not impossible. Hundreds of ships, maybe, but not likely even a few thousand would manage to keep it secret.

If you go back and read that plot driven narrative in WoH, you will note even DW had to completely twist things to make it work.

Essentially what you are stating is: I am going to assign several thousand, erm 10's of thousands of ships we do not have, to tail random merchant ships on the off chance they will be ending their trail at Darius...

If you have that many ships and domination of space, you are simply going to seize EVERY merchant ship in space. At that point you do not even care if Darius exists other than being a hostile power who could be annoying later. It is a strategy of swatting a fly when the whole cow is in front of you.

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:As for why the SLN didn't know about them--Technodyne is not owned by the SLN. Technodyne has lots of R&D that the SLN doesn't know about. They didn't know about the pods or extended missiles that Technodyne produced, either, and we know for sure that those came from Technodyne.

JohnRoth wrote:
Did they? We know that Technodyne provided them. I don't think we know that they designed and manufactured them.

SWM wrote:You are correct that we don't know for certain that they designed and manufactured the pods and extended-range missiles. But it seems likely, since they obviously had the production lines for them. They are already supplying them to the SLN. They are also supplying cataphracts, so they must have had production lines for cataphracts, as well. I can't imagine that managers would not notice that they were building something they had never designed and had no idea where the design came from. As I said, the Alignment would have set this up so there was a clear paper trail of R&D for these technologies. If we know Technodyne is producing cataphracts, I see no reason to assume that the first cataphracts we saw didn't come from Technodyne.

fallsfromtrees wrote:My bolding. Do we know that they are supplying them to the SLN, or did they just supply them to Filareta? Knowing that his entire staff was either going to be dead or prisoner and therefore not able to pass the info back to the actual SLN

Admiral Kingsford certainly knows about them. He said:

A Rising Thunder, Chapter 31 wrote:
"Considering all of that, and considering the pod-launched missiles Technodyne made available to Eleventh Fleet..."

To quote Shannon - oops. I had forgotten that line.

wastedfly wrote:You could have a Trillion ships going in and out of Darius. No one would ever know. Thing called Hyperspace. Can go anywhere. No one has a clue where you are from or going to next. You cannot track through hyperspace.

DDHvi wrote:In one of the books, you have a captain who has a pirate hunter civilian ship equipped with military grade sensors tracking someone through hyperspace until he finds the destination system. It was when Haven was going to ambush Honor at the Marsh system. She used the knowledge of the ambush force to talk the IAN into backing off until things were resolved.

Tracking in hyperspace is hard because the high particle densities cloud the sensors, but not impossible. Hundreds of ships, maybe, but not likely even a few thousand would manage to keep it secret.

Just for the record, this was Captain (nee Admiral) Bachfisch during War of Honor.

wastedfly wrote:If you go back and read that plot driven narrative in WoH, you will note even DW had to completely twist things to make it work.

Essentially what you are stating is: I am going to assign several thousand, erm 10's of thousands of ships we do not have, to tail random merchant ships on the off chance they will be ending their trail at Darius...

If you have that many ships and domination of space, you are simply going to seize EVERY merchant ship in space. At that point you do not even care if Darius exists other than being a hostile power who could be annoying later. It is a strategy of swatting a fly when the whole cow is in front of you.

Agreed, wastedfly, unless you have prior knowledge/intelligence that the ship is headed somewhere 'interesting'...and I think the MAlignment would be most cautious about that information.

Still, if you get there by Hyper it would have to be in a ship's hyper log and if that ship is captured and the log is not erased (glitch? compensator failure kills crew before they can dump info?), then someone might get suspicious about a site noone else seems to have visited or even knows about....

Again, unlikely (the MAlignment would be extra cautious on this information)..about as unlikely as capturing a German U-Boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (see the U-505, it currently resides outside the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago).

We shall see, eventually.