|
Direwolf18
Captain of the List
Posts: 506
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:39 pm
|
I think Hutch's comment about attacking your own home-world in his scenario is more apt then people are thinking. I will get to that.
That being said, there are only so many suicide charges they can order their personnel on before said personnel start saying, no not going to do it. Unless they can drastically shift the balance of tech, and quickly that is all its going to be, suicide charges that probably won't accomplish anything.
At which point you need to find some way to get them out there ready to charge Manticorian super missles.
Right now they are going forward on plain pig ignorance, but that is starting to change. Some of their more competent commanders like Commodore Thurgood realize a losing hand when they see one and will fold rather then die to give political cover for their corrupt civilian/uniformed superiors. At some point the average Sollie spacer is going to realize if s/he is anywhere near a Manty ship of any kind their toast. Even then the Mandarins are pushing it off saying how the Manties one by trickery and betrayal, and not that their ships are so much superior. Sooner or latter it is going to be common knowledge though, that is when the real problems will kick in.
You could go the peep route and shoot officers and their families, but that has the problem of pretty much guaranteeing a coup attempt by said officers who don't want their families shot.
You could take the religious fervor route, as seen in like the Safehold series, but I can't see that working in Honorverse.
Their only other option is to essentially fall back on nationalism, for the defense of the league. Yes we are outgunned, but if we don't take a stand here, all we love will fall. Except that's the problem they have, primary loyalty is NOT to the league. Even in the core and inner shell where things are by far and away the best, many people's loyalty is to their homeworlds and NOT to the larger federal government. A good comparison would be the American Civil War, loyalty was more towards the individual states, and not the Federal Government.
All that being said, I don't think we have hit a true tipping point of mass mutiny and desertion. Not yet, there needs to be a few more major blunders. I think that tipping point is going to be the Battle of Beowulf, I have a really really bad feeling about what is going to happen, and my guess is something like a large scale violation of the Erdani Edict is going to cause many of the worlds not just in the frontier, but in places like the core to decide the time has come to go their own way. When THOSE worlds start rebelling, that's when it all starts to fall apart.
We don't know the breakdown of where the officers and enlisted are from in the league, the Senior most officers in the SLN seem to be Terrans, although its not always explicitly said. They are definitely Core Worlders though. But how many more are from places like Beowulf, Strathmore, Kenichi, and Galen who have between them 24 Billion Core Worlders, the kinda people who are needed in a modern navy. And these are just the world's we know are going to try and leave, what about all the worlds in the protectorates or the outer or inner shells.
You add all this up, you WILL have desertion, probably on a large scale, as people know that fighting the manties is hopeless, and have little interest in massacring their own civilians just because some asshole (who you never liked in the first place) is ordering you to just to cover his ass and his career.
|
But I think the principle that sven hauke started with, that within the SLN there are going to be some internal problems, is justified.