Freedom in the Madras Sector

JohnRoth wrote: Visigoth (on the other end of the terminus) is going to know within hours, meaning Old Earth will know at some time between a couple of days and two weeks (we don't know how far Visigoth is from Earth - it could be anywhere between 20 ly and 100 ly).

Bill Woods wrote: Beowulf is more-or-less on the line between Visigoth and Earth, so close to 100 ly.

JohnRoth wrote: Textev or at least Word of Weber please. The general opinion has always been that he hasn't said anything other than it's 60 ly from Beowulf.

From SftS, ch. 44

"From [Mesa], it's another thirteen T-days or so to Old Terra by way of the Visigoth Junction and Beowulf. ..."

There's the travel time explicitly. And if Beowulf is on the way from Visigoth to Sol, then Visigoth is about 40 + 60 light-years from Sol.

Imaginos1892 wrote:It could be an Anderman fleet; there was talk of them sending a force to Mesa to ... discuss the Hofschulte Incident. When Emperor Gustav is upset, everybody's upset.

It's possible, but I don't see it being sent off before the Cachat–Zilwicki revelation, clearly identifying the Big Bad. Or before knowing how the Sollie-Manty war is going to shake down, since the way home from Mesa is via the Visigoth junction.

The time to beat is Henke's. News of 2nd Manticore reached her by dispatch boat directly from Lynx to Tillerman. She left there for Meyers a couple of days later. She spent about three weeks at Meyers; long enough for dispatch boats to catch up flying Tillerman – Spindle – Meyers. She then left Meyers for Mesa, sending a dispatch boat via Lynx back to Manticore, which got home a little ahead of Zilwicki.

Not having a clear idea of all the distances or the astrography, it's hard to work out how long that took. But Honor knows! When she talks to Zilwicki at the end of Cauldron, she knows Henke's ETA at Mesa. And if she knew an Andy task force were going to get there a week sooner, she'd have told him that.

There are three ways I know of from the Andy Empire to Mesa:
1) Via the Manticore junction to Lynx, then through hyperspace.
2) Via the Asgard junction, then through hyperspace.
3) Directly through hyperspace.

If the Andies take the first, obviously the Manties have to know what they're doing. If they take the third, I don't see how they can get there ahead of Henke. If they take the Asgard junction, I don't know.... But, if they're on the way, why would they have withheld that information from the Manties? There's no reason to keep that secret, give the desirability of working together.

Bill Woods wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:It could be an Anderman fleet; there was talk of them sending a force to Mesa to ... discuss the Hofschulte Incident. When Emperor Gustav is upset, everybody's upset.

It's possible, but I don't see it being sent off before the Cachat–Zilwicki revelation, clearly identifying the Big Bad. Or before knowing how the Sollie-Manty war is going to shake down, since the way home from Mesa is via the Visigoth junction.

The time to beat is Henke's. News of 2nd Manticore reached her by dispatch boat directly from Lynx to Tillerman. She left there for Meyers a couple of days later. She spent about three weeks at Meyers; long enough for dispatch boats to catch up flying Tillerman – Spindle – Meyers. She then left Meyers for Mesa, sending a dispatch boat via Lynx back to Manticore, which got home a little ahead of Zilwicki.

Not having a clear idea of all the distances or the astrography, it's hard to work out how long that took. But Honor knows! When she talks to Zilwicki at the end of Cauldron, she knows Henke's ETA at Mesa. And if she knew an Andy task force were going to get there a week sooner, she'd have told him that.

There are three ways I know of from the Andy Empire to Mesa:
1) Via the Manticore junction to Lynx, then through hyperspace.
2) Via the Asgard junction, then through hyperspace.
3) Directly through hyperspace.

If the Andies take the first, obviously the Manties have to know what they're doing. If they take the third, I don't see how they can get there ahead of Henke. If they take the Asgard junction, I don't know.... But, if they're on the way, why would they have withheld that information from the Manties? There's no reason to keep that secret, give the desirability of working together.

What about the IAN units stationed at Trevor's Star going to Mesa via the MWJ and Beowulf

I think they would be able to get to Mesa relatively quickly.

George J. Smith wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:It's possible, but I don't see it being sent off before the Cachat–Zilwicki revelation, clearly identifying the Big Bad. Or before knowing how the Sollie-Manty war is going to shake down, since the way home from Mesa is via the Visigoth junction.

The time to beat is Henke's. News of 2nd Manticore reached her by dispatch boat directly from Lynx to Tillerman. She left there for Meyers a couple of days later. She spent about three weeks at Meyers; long enough for dispatch boats to catch up flying Tillerman – Spindle – Meyers. She then left Meyers for Mesa, sending a dispatch boat via Lynx back to Manticore, which got home a little ahead of Zilwicki.

Not having a clear idea of all the distances or the astrography, it's hard to work out how long that took. But Honor knows! When she talks to Zilwicki at the end of Cauldron, she knows Henke's ETA at Mesa. And if she knew an Andy task force were going to get there a week sooner, she'd have told him that.

There are three ways I know of from the Andy Empire to Mesa:
1) Via the Manticore junction to Lynx, then through hyperspace.
2) Via the Asgard junction, then through hyperspace.
3) Directly through hyperspace.

If the Andies take the first, obviously the Manties have to know what they're doing. If they take the third, I don't see how they can get there ahead of Henke. If they take the Asgard junction, I don't know.... But, if they're on the way, why would they have withheld that information from the Manties? There's no reason to keep that secret, give the desirability of working together.

What about the IAN units stationed at Trevor's Star going to Mesa via the MWJ and Beowulf

I think they would be able to get to Mesa relatively quickly.

It would be the quickest way of all, yes. But using the Beowulf bridge is out of the question until later for a variety of reasons - and it would require Manticoran knowledge and consent, just as with using the Lynx bridge. As pointed out, Honor didn't mention a thing about the Andies to Zilwicki.

Personally, I'm currently split over whether it's Tenth Fleet(90%) or a task force out of Mannerheim or another RF member(10%). The 10% comes from uncertainty over the astrographic locations of those RF members and how useful it would be to the MAlign to have one of their own in charge of "liberating" Mesa, in order to neaten up the Houndini loose ends and take interstellar credit away from the SEM.

Imaginos1892 wrote:It could be an Anderman fleet; there was talk of them sending a force to Mesa to ... discuss the Hofschulte Incident. When Emperor Gustav is upset, everybody's upset.

Bill Woods wrote:It's possible, but I don't see it being sent off before the Cachat–Zilwicki revelation, clearly identifying the Big Bad. Or before knowing how the Sollie-Manty war is going to shake down, since the way home from Mesa is via the Visigoth junction.

The time to beat is Henke's. News of 2nd Manticore reached her by dispatch boat directly from Lynx to Tillerman. She left there for Meyers a couple of days later. She spent about three weeks at Meyers; long enough for dispatch boats to catch up flying Tillerman – Spindle – Meyers. She then left Meyers for Mesa, sending a dispatch boat via Lynx back to Manticore, which got home a little ahead of Zilwicki.

Not having a clear idea of all the distances or the astrography, it's hard to work out how long that took. But Honor knows! When she talks to Zilwicki at the end of Cauldron, she knows Henke's ETA at Mesa. And if she knew an Andy task force were going to get there a week sooner, she'd have told him that.

There are three ways I know of from the Andy Empire to Mesa:
1) Via the Manticore junction to Lynx, then through hyperspace.
2) Via the Asgard junction, then through hyperspace.
3) Directly through hyperspace.

If the Andies take the first, obviously the Manties have to know what they're doing. If they take the third, I don't see how they can get there ahead of Henke. If they take the Asgard junction, I don't know.... But, if they're on the way, why would they have withheld that information from the Manties? There's no reason to keep that secret, give the desirability of working together.

George J. Smith wrote:What about the IAN units stationed at Trevor's Star going to Mesa via the MWJ and Beowulf

I think they would be able to get to Mesa relatively quickly.

Several points. First, since the Anderman Empire is removing itself from the Grand Alliance, there won't be any Andie units at Trevor's Star. That is, however, mildly irrelevant since they can come from their own terminus instead.

Second, to make it closer, you'd have to attack through the Visigoth to Mesa hyper bridge. Visigoth would undoubtedly object. Strongly. Whether the MSDF keeps any ships at the terminus is unknown, but they very likely have some forts, etc. Good way to lose your invasion fleet.

If you don't attempt to use the Visigoth junction, the hyperspace distance from Beowulf to Mesa is probably longer than from Lynx to Mesa.

Third, as Munro Burton mentioned, it's politically infeasible until after the plebiscite.

Bill Woods wrote:

JohnRoth wrote: Visigoth (on the other end of the terminus) is going to know within hours, meaning Old Earth will know at some time between a couple of days and two weeks (we don't know how far Visigoth is from Earth - it could be anywhere between 20 ly and 100 ly).

Bill Woods wrote: Beowulf is more-or-less on the line between Visigoth and Earth, so close to 100 ly.

JohnRoth wrote: Textev or at least Word of Weber please. The general opinion has always been that he hasn't said anything other than it's 60 ly from Beowulf.

From SftS, ch. 44

"From [Mesa], it's another thirteen T-days or so to Old Terra by way of the Visigoth Junction and Beowulf. ..."

There's the travel time explicitly. And if Beowulf is on the way from Visigoth to Sol, then Visigoth is about 40 + 60 light-years from Sol.

I saw that. It puzzled me, and then I discounted it as a slip of the word processor because there's no reason for Beowulf to be mentioned in that passage. The courier ship isn't going to stop at Beowulf to hand off a copy of the report.

JohnRoth wrote:I saw that. It puzzled me, and then I discounted it as a slip of the word processor because there's no reason for Beowulf to be mentioned in that passage. The courier ship isn't going to stop at Beowulf to hand off a copy of the report.

We do know how far Visigoth is from Sol. 13 days by courier is about 100 light-years. So, Visigoth is 100 light-years from Sol. Beowulf to Sol is 40 light-years, and Visigoth to Beowulf is 60 light-years. Therefore Beowulf is almost directly between Visigoth and Sol. The text mentioned Beowulf only because Beowulf happens to be almost directly on the line from Visigoth to Sol.

n7axw wrote:The notion of Thurgood's taskforce being given to Meyers does make sense.

I'm not sure the rest of it does, though. Meyers doesn't really face a threat, for one thing. The SLN certainly isn't going to be poking its nose back in there And risk another confrontation with Manties at this juncture. And the League is shortly going to have more immediate concerns than remote little Meyers.

So Thurgood's squadron plus the LACs should be enough for now. Maybe not forever, but for now.

Then too, Manticore can't afford to be too generous in parcelling out its hulls. Remember OB? Until her industrial plant is back on line, the RMN is going to need every modern ship she can scape up for the mission at hand.

Good points, especially about "parcelling hulls". My reasoning about bringing at least a couple more "cruiser weight hulls" is the state astrographic position on the Star Kingdom/Talbott's flank, making it a defensive position. The folks back in Landing are astute enough to realize that Michelle has put the honor of the family at stake, essential because Madras as a sector is also the first major "chunk" of the SLN to be split off by force, making it either the shining light or dismal failure of the "successor state" strategy.

An uber strong Meyers accomplishes "all of the above". Even at the cost of reducing Sarnow's deployed ship count or rotating out a few ships off station from Lynx.

10th Fleets actions are only the first step in a very long process, especially as individuals who prospered under the OFS have to be dealt with, and confirmed whether they where actively involved or 'innocent bystanders' without turning into a blood bath.

SWM wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:I saw that. It puzzled me, and then I discounted it as a slip of the word processor because there's no reason for Beowulf to be mentioned in that passage. The courier ship isn't going to stop at Beowulf to hand off a copy of the report.

We do know how far Visigoth is from Sol. 13 days by courier is about 100 light-years. So, Visigoth is 100 light-years from Sol. Beowulf to Sol is 40 light-years, and Visigoth to Beowulf is 60 light-years. Therefore Beowulf is almost directly between Visigoth and Sol. The text mentioned Beowulf only because Beowulf happens to be almost directly on the line from Visigoth to Sol.

Right -- assuming White Haven doesn't think they'll stop off at Beowulf. Granted, there's no obvious reason why they should stop at Beowulf, but if he's including a stop there for some utterly unknown reason, then the straight-line solution doesn't work any more.