The Maya Crisis...

Thing is, **the SLN's trucks are busy elsewhere.**
(In the books, despite our opinions on how many
"trucks" and "despatchers" the SLN really must have.)

The Family Business is a very big business indeed.
The Senior Leaders have much to worry about, before
they can spare attention for the letters of distant
grandnephews and grandnieces.

"Constant churn" would be greatly reduced by the
very-long-term tours of duty that such very distant
stations require.

At least, that seems to be DW's story,
and he seems to be sticking to it.

HTM

kzt wrote:that is what is claimed, but the fact that bunch
of people got killed manning SLN ships that were
retroactively declared to be Erewhon
has **holes you can drive a truck through**.
We can start with that fact that SLN officers (and possibly NCOs) are essentially in the family business. So there will be senior SLN officers who know fully well that those ships were SLN ships because their young relative wrote to Aunt Joan the retired SLN rear admiral and told her all about their assignment to the new SLN ship, right before they were killed in action.

Plus there is going to be constant churn as officers and sailors arrive and leave the forces in Maya.

SWM wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:
Considering what they've already done, I don't think "legality" issues are something the League's "shadow government" really care about.

They've already admitted that much of what they've done in governing the League is illegal under the League's own constitution.

The Mandarins might not care about legality, but the members of the League do, as I've said several times. The Mandarins will try to avoid doing things that will get the League members angry at them.

I went back to re-read the thread, and SWM's point here is very on-target. The Mandarins and OFS have always used the figleaf of popular consent and humanitarian assistance to the under-developed worlds to cloak their activities as far as the voters were concerned. But the voters mostly control their local governments; so long as the federal government can provide a smokescreen, mostly everyone just avoids bringing any daylight to bear on OFS or Transtellar activities in the Verge.

I also looked back at ART, and the numbers are horrible from the government's pov. There were somewhat better than 400 planetary systems who did not support the Mandarins. Only 11 of those might be considered RF at this point, and CoG didn't do much to portray the "other Zunkers" (and Saltash) that would have made it into the League's awareness by the time of Beowulf's secession vote.

With that degree of disaproval, and a strong record of military incompetence, and outright recession settling in, how many more systems would decide it is in their best interest to cut loose from the Mandarins and start over?

The Mandarins have played perception games with public opinion about nearly every thing since Monica; Technodyne, Mesa, BF actions--they keep trying to spin out a lie to make whatever they do "reasonable" in the face of Manticoran "aggression."

We still haven't seen any indication that what the LT Askew worried over taking place--that the public will decide the "Fleet 2000" propaganda was an outright lie, and that public support for the federal government(hence, member system support) could suffer catastrophic damage when the public starts to look for "the truth."

O'Hanrahan will be in her muckraking equivalent of heaven, at that point. Maya's deciding to opt out won't make any difference at that point, so there may not be much military action there.

I would like to see Maya tasked (by Kingsford!) with responding to local insurrections in the name of OFS, though. Barregos might be able to double the size of the sector by "assisting" to quell insurrection (by demanding a local plebescite for local systems in revolt to practice their sacred right of "self-determination" and removing the previous, OFS-installed regimes . . . .

However, I expect the author to confound everyone, no matter what we think.


Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
(snip)

O'Hanrahan will be in her muckraking equivalent of heaven, at that point. Maya's deciding to opt out won't make any difference at that point, so there may not be much military action there.

O'Hanrahan is on Mesa as 10th fleet comes over the alpha wall at the end of CoG; there's no indication of when, or even if, she will get back to Terra to take up local muckraking.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I would like to see Maya tasked (by Kingsford!) with responding to local insurrections in the name of OFS, though. Barregos might be able to double the size of the sector by "assisting" to quell insurrection (by demanding a local plebescite for local systems in revolt to practice their sacred right of "self-determination" and removing the previous, OFS-installed regimes . . . .
Rob

Interesting idea, that. And Barregos could justify it to the Erewhon and the GA as moving to protect their southern flank as well.

JohnRoth wrote:

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:
(snip)

O'Hanrahan will be in her muckraking equivalent of heaven, at that point. Maya's deciding to opt out won't make any difference at that point, so there may not be much military action there.

O'Hanrahan is on Mesa as 10th fleet comes over the alpha wall at the end of CoG; there's no indication of when, or even if, she will get back to Terra to take up local muckraking.

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:I would like to see Maya tasked (by Kingsford!) with responding to local insurrections in the name of OFS, though. Barregos might be able to double the size of the sector by "assisting" to quell insurrection (by demanding a local plebescite for local systems in revolt to practice their sacred right of "self-determination" and removing the previous, OFS-installed regimes . . . .
Rob

Interesting idea, that. And Barregos could justify it to the Erewhon and the GA as moving to protect their southern flank as well.

The only problem is each sector has it's own governor and FF forces - Barragos and Rozsak cannot just waltz in without a request from the other sector leadership or orders from FF leadership - which will probably send heavy regional reaction forces before they send the over tasked 2 DD flotillias in the Maya sector.

Theemile wrote:The only problem is each sector has it's own governor and FF forces - Barragos and Rozsak cannot just waltz in without a request from the other sector leadership or orders from FF leadership - which will probably send heavy regional reaction forces before they send the over tasked 2 DD flotillias in the Maya sector.

I assumed that NeoBob and JohnRoth were talking about insurrections in the Maya Sector.

SWM wrote:I assumed that NeoBob and JohnRoth were talking about insurrections in the Maya Sector.

Nope. They were quite explicit about the possibility of Adm Kingsford ordering Maya to support neighboring OFS/FF elements against insurrections. There are unlikely to be any popular insurrections inside the Maya sector because of Baragos' popularity and the whole purpose of the "Sepoy Option" is to preserve order and prosperity as the League drops into the sewage system.

PS: I do NOT think it likely that Maya will be tasked with supporting neighboring sectors, although they may be tasked with commerce raiding against the GA -- at which time they officially begin their secession/rebellion. (Although they might forget to tell headquarters that; phony reports of convoys attacked and ships "lost" might confuse the issue for longer than the League will survive.

It is unlikely that Maya (specificaly Rozsak as a FF Admiral) will be tasked in doing commerce raiding against the GA. It is more likely that the SLN is going to move various ships around and attach them to commerce raiding groups.

It is possible that Rozack will be ordered to send one or more ships to the Phoenex area of the end of the Erwheon- Terra Haute wormhole and then hang about watching theHennesy terminus (from a "safe" distance) to gather information on volume and activity by anybody using that route to Manticore.
Hennesey is probably well defended by Manticore and could deal with any SLN ships that come too close. Unless BF or FF actauly have ships sitting on top of the terminus, any freighters/commercial ships using it would be able to hyper out in any direction they pleased and then just make it a short jump and reorient and head to the actual destination.

Consider that Erewhon would be really annoyed if FF decided to sieze any Manticorian ships near it's system including the Erewhon Bridge. Actualy sending BF/FF units to take control of the Erewhon Bridge or "protect" Erewhon would have more than just serious consequences for the SLN ships (given that Erewhon has both at least Manti-light tech and a lot of up to SD and Dreadnoughts with presumabley combat experineced crews) as Erewhon isn't going to roll-over and the political backlash of SLN seizing a major independent system would be a disaster.
Does the League have 50 to 100 SDs it can send off to Erewhon- under whatever pretext- that can stand up to the Erewhon Navy? Not likely. And what pretext? That Erewhon allows Manticore merchant shipping to use the Erewhon Bridge? That Erewhon trades with Manticore or the "GA"?

That Rozsak could be ordered to support local (outside the Maya Sector) OFS administration or their clients is possible but that is going to mean that there is more trouble in the neighboring sectors than the local FF detachments can handle. Remember, your avereage SLN DD is quite enough to crush the infrastrucre of a Verge planet with KEWs. We haven't been given any evedence that Barrages is experiencing any rebelions or even serious political problems on any of the planets or in systems under his control. While Rozsak probably has at least one Intradiction Battalion on the ground somewhere, it is unlikely they are actualy the same level of thugs that is common to the OFS. It would be more likely that -since they are within Barrogos's nominal command- that the officers would be working with him and the over all quality would be much closer to a regular Army unit. Just the sort of thing he would want the SL/OFS to be paying for to use in the Sepoy program.

Besides, Barrogos and Rozsak might have already been feeding the Buracracy with stories of multiple low-level problems that they have been "dealing with" and are actually streached quite thin and so will appear unable to shake units lose to head off as part of a combined effort in raiding against the GA.

Weird Harold wrote:

SWM wrote:I assumed that NeoBob and JohnRoth were talking about insurrections in the Maya Sector.

Nope. They were quite explicit about the possibility of Adm Kingsford ordering Maya to support neighboring OFS/FF elements against insurrections. There are unlikely to be any popular insurrections inside the Maya sector because of Baragos' popularity and the whole purpose of the "Sepoy Option" is to preserve order and prosperity as the League drops into the sewage system.

PS: I do NOT think it likely that Maya will be tasked with supporting neighboring sectors, although they may be tasked with commerce raiding against the GA -- at which time they officially begin their secession/rebellion. (Although they might forget to tell headquarters that; phony reports of convoys attacked and ships "lost" might confuse the issue for longer than the League will survive.

I will concur with BrigadeXO that Maya won't be tasked with raiding into Haven. So long as they can keep Haven away from the Mayan revenue stream, the better.

Actually, I was assuming the Malign intention of kicking off chaos and rebellion from some of the governors they primed for it (aside from Barregos, who prepped on his own) would make such a mess of the Verge that other sector governors would either be swamped trying to recover control, or in rebellion (with their personnal detachments of FF)themselves, carving out a personal Empire. This might lead to a situation in which the governor of a sector that is NOT in revolt, and not swamped with planets trying to secede, might find themselves tasked to assist those other sectors. . . .

I doubt Weber will write it that way, but it's sort of fun to speculate.

Regards, Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:Nope. They were quite explicit about the possibility of Adm Kingsford ordering Maya to support neighboring OFS/FF elements against insurrections. There are unlikely to be any popular insurrections inside the Maya sector because of Baragos' popularity and the whole purpose of the "Sepoy Option" is to preserve order and prosperity as the League drops into the sewage system.

PS: I do NOT think it likely that Maya will be tasked with supporting neighboring sectors, although they may be tasked with commerce raiding against the GA -- at which time they officially begin their secession/rebellion. (Although they might forget to tell headquarters that; phony reports of convoys attacked and ships "lost" might confuse the issue for longer than the League will survive.

I will concur with BrigadeXO that Maya won't be tasked with raiding into Haven. So long as they can keep Haven away from the Mayan revenue stream, the better.

Actually, I was assuming the Malign intention of kicking off chaos and rebellion from some of the governors they primed for it (aside from Barregos, who prepped on his own) would make such a mess of the Verge that other sector governors would either be swamped trying to recover control, or in rebellion (with their personnal detachments of FF)themselves, carving out a personal Empire. This might lead to a situation in which the governor of a sector that is NOT in revolt, and not swamped with planets trying to secede, might find themselves tasked to assist those other sectors. . . .

I doubt Weber will write it that way, but it's sort of fun to speculate.

Regards, Rob[/quote]

I'm not certain if it's even possible to Roszak's "official" FF forces to do anything BUT commerce protection and anti-piracy duties.

Roszak's official Forces are 1 Flotilla of 18 DDs and 3 CLs.
It was never specified, but he could have taken control of the FF type ships captured at Torch, which would give him 18 DDs and 2-5 CLs. - but these would be off the books.

The ships he "officially" is building at Erewhon are DDs and CLs, He had 8 of each at Torch - assuming that he didn't report the losses and has built another set of each, He can report ~3 DD/CL Flotillias Officially.

Normally, Each DD has a squad of Marines - each CL has a Platoon, between them, they have ~1000 Marines or that of of 1.5 BCs - That's not a good planetary assault force.

So what can he do with ~60 DD and CLS - not much but wait for the big dogs to show up.

Normally, Each DD has a squad of Marines - each CL has a Platoon, between them, they have ~1000 Marines or that of of 1.5 BCs - That's not a good planetary assault force.

Nit: Each DD has a platoon, each CL has a company.