Question about Beowulf tactics

Zakharra wrote: One reason I would put forth as a reason for the unusually large size of Beowulf's SDF is Haven. During its People's Republic phase (which was several hundred years I believe), Haven's eyes were fixed on taking Manticore. Most especially in the last century. Beowulf has a backdoor leading directly to Manticore. Their SDF would have been increased to deal with the possibility of a Haven victory in which Beowulf needs some defense in their system at all times to protect against a possible Haven attack.

It's not large enough to do that. The peeps used much larger forces than that and were pretty good at that whole fighting thing. System defenses might have made them able to hold the system against a reasonable sized attack, but could do very little against a hyper based thrust at the wormhole.

StealthSeeker wrote:This also gives the back story on how HH wound up being a "geni" with a much higher metabolism and as a result needs to consume more food than other people. But this story line of the "geni" genetics seems to have a touch of a flaw to it for me. It would seem that for Honor to be a "geni" her mother would also have to be one. Yet I specifically remember the plot line were Honor and her mother are talking about teaching the treecats to communicate via sign language and Honor offered her mother a cookie, which she refused, to keep her weight down. So Honor's mother is not a "geni". I suppose recessive traits can surface, but that would seem improbable. Or did Honor get her "geni" traits through he father??? Honor gets her height from him but I don't remember anything about him being a "geni" too.

SWM wrote:Honor got her genetic modifications from her father. Yes, he is a genie, too. It goes all the way back to Honor's great, great, great, great-something family, the first Harringtons who emigrated to Sphinx from Meyerdahl. Meyerdahl was an even higher-grav planet than Sphinx, and genetic modification was almost a necessity to survive there. The genetic modifications were done in such a way that they would permanently dominate (apparently using some technique unknown to 20th century genetics). So the Harringtons of Sphinx have always been genies. In fact, somewhere in the text is the statement that a very large percentage of the population of Sphinx has heavy-grav genetic modifications.

n7axw wrote:Weren't both the Meyerdahl and the Winton mods prior the Beouwulf code? That's how I remember it, anyway if my memory isn't playing tricks on me..AGAIN

Don

fallsfromtrees wrote:I don't believe so. The Beowulf code was formulated as a direct result of the Final War. I believe that both the Meyerdahl and Winton mods were post Final War.

The Winton genetic modifications were before Earth's Final War.

A Beautiful Friendship, Chapter 1 wrote:She sighed again, with an edge of wistful misery, and wished her great-great-great-great-whatever grandparents hadn’t volunteered for the Meyerdahl First Wave. Her parents had sat her down to explain what that meant shortly after her eighth birthday. She’d already heard the word “genie,” though she hadn’t realized that, technically at least, it applied to her, but she’d only started her classroom studies four T-years before. Her history courses hadn’t gotten to Old Earth’s Final War yet, so she’d had no way to know why some people still reacted so violently to any notion of modifications to the human genotype . . . or why they considered “genie” one of the dirtiest words in Standard English.
Now she knew, though she still thought anyone who felt that way was silly. Of course the bio-weapons and “super soldiers” whipped up for the Final War had been horrible. But that had all happened over five hundred T-years ago, and it hadn’t had a thing to do with people like the Meyerdahl or Quelhollow first waves. She supposed it was a good thing the original Manticoran settlers had left Sol before the Final War. Their old-fashioned cryo ships had taken long enough to make the trip for them to miss the entire thing . . . and the prejudices that went with it.

Boldface is my emphasis.

I'm not so sure about whether the Meyerdahl modifications were before or after Earth's Final War. I believe that they were done before the Beowulf Code was written, because the Beowulf Code doesn't consider the Meyerdahl or Quelhollow modifications as beyond what is allowed.(IIRC, David has said that genetic modifications prior to the Final War that weren't biological weaponry [super soldiers] are considered acceptable, if only because of how many people have those modifications.)

kzt wrote:

Zakharra wrote: One reason I would put forth as a reason for the unusually large size of Beowulf's SDF is Haven. During its People's Republic phase (which was several hundred years I believe), Haven's eyes were fixed on taking Manticore. Most especially in the last century. Beowulf has a backdoor leading directly to Manticore. Their SDF would have been increased to deal with the possibility of a Haven victory in which Beowulf needs some defense in their system at all times to protect against a possible Haven attack.

It's not large enough to do that. The peeps used much larger forces than that and were pretty good at that whole fighting thing. System defenses might have made them able to hold the system against a reasonable sized attack, but could do very little against a hyper based thrust at the wormhole.

True enough. But until very recently, there was always the 8000 lb gorilla behind Beowulf, and Haven would never risk stirring them up.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

n7axw wrote:
Weren't both the Meyerdahl and the Winton mods prior the Beouwulf code? That's how I remember it, anyway if my memory isn't playing tricks on me..AGAIN

Don

I don't believe so. The Beowulf code was formulated as a direct result of the Final War. I believe that both the Meyerdahl and Winton mods were post Final War.

I had Don's impression. Checking the Honorverse wiki timeline and the Meyerdahl mods entry comes up empty that way. The braininess elements of both the Meyerdahl and Winton mods would not be mere problem fixes or environmental ones, which suggests that either (1) the mods both predate the Code and would not be appropriate under it (which would be another reason for both families to downplay having them), or (2) they would be clear under the Code as mods for which parents ask rather than a government requires, but I'm really fuzzy on that sort of thing under the Code.

If we can date the Winton mods, it may help, as the Wintons were in cryo from about two hundred years before the Final War til over four hundred after it.

JeffEngel wrote:

n7axw wrote: Weren't both the Meyerdahl and the Winton mods prior the Beouwulf code? That's how I remember it, anyway if my memory isn't playing tricks on me..AGAIN
Don

fallsfromtrees wrote: I don't believe so. The Beowulf code was formulated as a direct result of the Final War. I believe that both the Meyerdahl and Winton mods were post Final War.

I had Don's impression. Checking the Honorverse wiki timeline and the Meyerdahl mods entry comes up empty that way. The braininess elements of both the Meyerdahl and Winton mods would not be mere problem fixes or environmental ones, which suggests that either (1) the mods both predate the Code and would not be appropriate under it (which would be another reason for both families to downplay having them), or (2) they would be clear under the Code as mods for which parents ask rather than a government requires, but I'm really fuzzy on that sort of thing under the Code.

If we can date the Winton mods, it may help, as the Wintons were in cryo from about two hundred years before the Final War til over four hundred after it.

For other folks, here's the timeline they are referring to:

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

My read is that very few people are aware of the Winton Mods, as those were at the "Roger Winton's parents point in the timeline, he was born PD 800-ish, so those are pre-Beowulf code. The textev I would quote for the Harrington genetic mod heritage is different:

A Beautiful Friendship wrote:She sighed again, with an edge of wistful misery, and wished her great-great-great-great-whatever grandparents hadn’t volunteered for the Meyerdahl First Wave... (snipped) ... it hadn’t had a thing to do with people like the Meyerdahl or Quelhollow first waves.

So there is a bias against genies in the non-Cryo settled Honorverse, even when the recipient comes from a line of more known "general use mods", heavy gravity etc. [I'd argue that makes all of the San Martino(s) descendants of "heavy grav genetically modified parents" by the way, just not the Meyerdahl Beta(s) with the other enhancers].

RFC's note on it agrees on the Meyerdahl mods being post-war but also leaves no timeline:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/333/1 ... This isn't especially different from what Allison does as her "quick and dirty fix" for the Grayson genetic problem she discovers in Echoes of Honor, except that she uses nanotech in that instance rather than engineering a "search and destroy" genetic component, which is partly because of the prejudice against genies which came after the Final War, which substantially preceded the Meyerdahl first wave modifications

That makes a second entry in the timeline on the wikia confusing or maybe incorrect, as it has Meyerdahl colonized in 500PD (pre-Final war) unless the -Beta mods came much later. (?)

That's where we all go YMMV... (finally figured that one out y'all: your mileage may vary)

StealthSeeker wrote:And if I remember correctly, the SLN keeps the bulk of their mothballed fleet at only 2 separate star systems. The attack on these 2 systems would be a combined fleet attack.

Nit: we don't know anything about where the reserve fleet is based. It might be in 2 systems, it might be in 10, it might be in 1. We have no text evidence.

SWM wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:And if I remember correctly, the SLN keeps the bulk of their mothballed fleet at only 2 separate star systems. The attack on these 2 systems would be a combined fleet attack.

Nit: we don't know anything about where the reserve fleet is based. It might be in 2 systems, it might be in 10, it might be in 1. We have no text evidence.

This is where it would be so wonderful to have access to all the books as text documents that could be searched for key words and phrases to look for things like this. This 2 system depot thing for mothballed ships is such a strong memory that I have a hard time accepting that I didn't read it somewhere and that it's not true. But I would have to re-read all the books to find the reference.

StealthSeeker wrote:

SWM wrote:Nit: we don't know anything about where the reserve fleet is based. It might be in 2 systems, it might be in 10, it might be in 1. We have no text evidence.

This is where it would be so wonderful to have access to all the books as text documents that could be searched for key words and phrases to look for things like this. This 2 system depot thing for mothballed ships is such a strong memory that I have a hard time accepting that I didn't read it somewhere and that it's not true. But I would have to re-read all the books to find the reference.

Did a search for 'battle fleet reserve' and only got four hits from the whole series. It helps if you can remember the names - none of those four hits I got even mentioned Hyperion One.

A search for Hyperion got me this, from ART:

"Hyperion One was the SLN's primary Sol System Space station. It was not only the Navy's largest single construction and service platform but the HQ location for its Logistics Command. LogCom was responsible for the vast number of superdreadnoughts mothballed not only there but at Battle Fleet installations in half a dozen other star systems."

So, seven Reserve depots in total.

The location of the reserve doesn't affect Beowulf's tactics, however. That's a "GA strategic decision" and if the Mandarin's are going to try to jump on Beowulf before the known referendum date, they're not going to be using reserve SD's to do it.

With Al-Fanudahi knowing what's being discussed, that would argue that based on time to cut orders, pick up a supply of Technodyne pods, and get assembled and shaken out for an attack, the ships have to be already active and come from Sol itself.

I'd wonder if that leaves an opening for bad things to happen. AKA while the fleet's away, the evil step-children will play. Might be the whole reason Kingsford et. al are considering it to begin with, aka bad advice not in the SL's or SLN's best interest.

kzt wrote:

Zakharra wrote: One reason I would put forth as a reason for the unusually large size of Beowulf's SDF is Haven. During its People's Republic phase (which was several hundred years I believe), Haven's eyes were fixed on taking Manticore. Most especially in the last century. Beowulf has a backdoor leading directly to Manticore. Their SDF would have been increased to deal with the possibility of a Haven victory in which Beowulf needs some defense in their system at all times to protect against a possible Haven attack.

It's not large enough to do that. The peeps used much larger forces than that and were pretty good at that whole fighting thing. System defenses might have made them able to hold the system against a reasonable sized attack, but could do very little against a hyper based thrust at the wormhole.

True, but Beowulf would not be willing to depend just upon the SLN for protection. If Havan had won, you would have likely seen a massive increase in system defensive construction, including forts and additional SDs, but it would make sense anyways, to have a large SDF in place before Havan won, just in case. To keep the PRH from getting too greedy and tempting them with a defenseless system that woudl be easy to snap off.

And given the standard PRHN tactics, it is very very unlikely they would have sent their navy in through SL space to do a pincer attack on Beowulf from both the wormhole and system edge. That would have seriously pissed off the SL for violation of their space. The SDF Beowulf had, would have been more than enough to chew up anything Haven could have transited through the wormhole.