Of Mike and Mesa

SharkHunter wrote:Keep in mind that if the MSDF was there it would make things WORSE not better, because the slaves and secce(s) aren't going to accept anyone without Palane's say so, and Palane won't say anything positive to anyone not backing Torch.

People can want to do whatever they want to do. Carrying out plans to achieve these aims is another matter, and is subject to having the people opposed to your plans objecting. The entire purpose of a military is to enforce your government's will on those who have different plans.

The Peeps were not planning accepting the refusal of Manticore to become yet another conquered planet, but eventually means were found to convince them to reconsider.

stewart wrote:That IS an evil thought for story line tactics, especially since, although "We, the readers" know that Mannerheim is part of the RA, the rest of the universe doesn't.
This would require Mannerheim to be in the elsewhere discussed very small minority of SDF's that have SD's as their largest capital ships. Thus far the only textev is BC's. (there's always tum te tum tum)

Well, "the Mannerheim System-Defense Force was far and away the most powerful of the Alignment's component navies." If the biggest they have are battlecruisers then the rest have what -- nothing more than cruisers?
Beowulf has built and manned 36 SDs, despite not having much use for them for the last several centuries. Presumably other systems can do as well, particularly if they're (secretly) planning to go to war. Maybe one of the SLN's mothball fleets is nearby?

Bill Woods wrote:

stewart wrote:That IS an evil thought for story line tactics, especially since, although "We, the readers" know that Mannerheim is part of the RA, the rest of the universe doesn't.
This would require Mannerheim to be in the elsewhere discussed very small minority of SDF's that have SD's as their largest capital ships. Thus far the only textev is BC's. (there's always tum te tum tum)

Well, "the Mannerheim System-Defense Force was far and away the most powerful of the Alignment's component navies." If the biggest they have are battlecruisers then the rest have what -- nothing more than cruisers?

I'm almost certain there's textev for the existence of Mannerheim DNs, although much too lazy to check.

Bill Woods wrote:

stewart wrote:That IS an evil thought for story line tactics, especially since, although "We, the readers" know that Mannerheim is part of the RA, the rest of the universe doesn't.
This would require Mannerheim to be in the elsewhere discussed very small minority of SDF's that have SD's as their largest capital ships. Thus far the only textev is BC's. (there's always tum te tum tum)

Well, "the Mannerheim System-Defense Force was far and away the most powerful of the Alignment's component navies." If the biggest they have are battlecruisers then the rest have what -- nothing more than cruisers?
Beowulf has built and manned 36 SDs, despite not having much use for them for the last several centuries. Presumably other systems can do as well, particularly if they're (secretly) planning to go to war. Maybe one of the SLN's mothball fleets is nearby?

I can't find the textev - it's possibly in Crown of Slaves and I don't have an ebook version loaded(or it's because a few of the others are eARCs) - but I did find that Mannerheim has a Task Force Four, commanded by a full Admiral. The BC squadron(number 6, incidentally) which destroyed Harvest Joy was commanded by a Commodore.

Granted, it's a different Navy with different rules and regulations complicated further by the need to position Alignment officers in key roles, but compare this with the RMN's prewar Hancock Station task force, where the BC squadrons were commanded by Rear Admirals(and despite multiple SD/DN squadrons, did not have a full Admiral anywhere in sight).

stewart wrote:That IS an evil thought for story line tactics, especially since, although "We, the readers" know that Mannerheim is part of the RA, the rest of the universe doesn't.
This would require Mannerheim to be in the elsewhere discussed very small minority of SDF's that have SD's as their largest capital ships. Thus far the only textev is BC's. (there's always tum te tum tum)

Bill Woods wrote:Well, "the Mannerheim System-Defense Force was far and away the most powerful of the Alignment's component navies." If the biggest they have are battlecruisers then the rest have what -- nothing more than cruisers?
Beowulf has built and manned 36 SDs, despite not having much use for them for the last several centuries. Presumably other systems can do as well, particularly if they're (secretly) planning to go to war. Maybe one of the SLN's mothball fleets is nearby?

munroburton wrote:I can't find the textev - it's possibly in Crown of Slaves and I don't have an ebook version loaded(or it's because a few of the others are eARCs) - but I did find that Mannerheim has a Task Force Four, commanded by a full Admiral. The BC squadron(number 6, incidentally) which destroyed Harvest Joy was commanded by a Commodore.

Granted, it's a different Navy with different rules and regulations complicated further by the need to position Alignment officers in key roles, but compare this with the RMN's prewar Hancock Station task force, where the BC squadrons were commanded by Rear Admirals(and despite multiple SD/DN squadrons, did not have a full Admiral anywhere in sight).

Good catch. It's in Torch of Freedom, chapter 50, where it's pointed out that Admiral Trajan, commanding Task Force 4, has his flag on a dreadnaught. He's one of the top two or three admirals, so if they've got any superdreadnaughts at all, they don't have more than two squadrons.

JohnRoth wrote:

SWM wrote:Um, Mesa knew that Palane, Zilwicki, and Cachat were inside the tower. The word had spread all through the Seccie sectors, and the information had also gotten to the Mesan Government. The rumor that the great Palane, who had a huge reputation among the slaves and seccies, was actually on Mesa fighting for them was huge news. In fact, the rebels used her reputation to boost the morale of the rebel forces and attract more seccie sectors into rebellion. Drescher did not get the information from whoever just came into the system--the Mesan government had known for weeks.

They didn't know about Zilwiki, and he wasn't in the tower anyway. He and Yana were operating independently. Also, nobody else was actively rebelling yet; that was a fear they had that it would start fairly quickly once the security forces had ground themselves into hamburger trying to take the tower.

I'll yield about Cachat and Zilwicki (though I'm pretty sure there is textev that the Mesans did know both of them were back on Mesa). And I wasn't saying that there were other sectors actually rebelling yet. I was saying that the rebels were deliberately spreading the news of Palane's presence to spur rebellions elsewhere. It had not yet gotten to the point of rebellious outbreaks, but the word had spread, and the Mesan government knew that Palane was there.

SharkHunter wrote:I'm not worried about the conjectural MSDF arrival anyway, because the MSDF coming can only be linked to knowledge of what is happening on Mesa, thus exposing them as MAlign, witting or not. So I'm dead sure that it's 10th fleet. Meaning that parts of the MSDF arriving shortly thereafter could make things interesting in the "what are you doing here?" sense...

No one has suggested that the MSDF would have come specifically in response to current events on Mesa. If the MSDF did arrive in Mesa, it would be (nominally) in response to Manticore's claims about Mesa and Mannerheim's own policies toward Mesa. It DOES NOT REQUIRE any knowledge of current events on Mesa.

SWM wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:They didn't know about Zilwiki, and he wasn't in the tower anyway. He and Yana were operating independently. Also, nobody else was actively rebelling yet; that was a fear they had that it would start fairly quickly once the security forces had ground themselves into hamburger trying to take the tower.

I'll yield about Cachat and Zilwicki (though I'm pretty sure there is textev that the Mesans did know both of them were back on Mesa).

I don't think so, just general involvement by the Manties, since Palane obviously wouldn't be acting alone.

Snyder and McGillicuddy and their allies on the General Board might see Thandi Palane's presence here as a godsend—as "proof" Torch and, by extension, Manticore truly were in bed with the Audubon Ballroom.

SWM wrote: And I wasn't saying that there were other sectors actually rebelling yet. I was saying that the rebels were deliberately spreading the news of Palane's presence to spur rebellions elsewhere. It had not yet gotten to the point of rebellious outbreaks, but the word had spread, and the Mesan government knew that Palane was there.

As I said before, there'd been some small-scale activity.

[quote="Bill Woods"]"SWM"]"JohnRoth"]


Snyder and McGillicuddy and their allies on the General Board might see Thandi Palane's presence here as a godsend—as "proof" Torch and, by extension, Manticore truly were in bed with the Audubon Ballroom.

------------------

But of course Torch (at least) is involved with the Ballroom, with Jeremy X as SecWar and majority of the RTN senior officers having dropped their X-names recently, that's a near given.

What the Mesan authorities need to convince the world / argue for is that the Ballroom is a monolithic organization with interstellar command and control on a par with first-line star-nations. The command and control element will be harder to demonstrate, but they will surely try.

Torch's first government act was a declaration of war against Mesa and its associated companies.

-- Stewart

Bill Woods wrote:

SWM wrote: And I wasn't saying that there were other sectors actually rebelling yet. I was saying that the rebels were deliberately spreading the news of Palane's presence to spur rebellions elsewhere. It had not yet gotten to the point of rebellious outbreaks, but the word had spread, and the Mesan government knew that Palane was there.

As I said before, there'd been some small-scale activity.

It doesn't matter whether there was any other rebellious activity. It is irrelevant, entirely beside the point. The point is that Mesa already knew that Palane was there. Duchesne didn't get that information from the incoming ships; the news had already been spread around the planet long before the ships showed up.