League Survival

Sigs wrote:My point is that their plan is as of the last book undoable, this means that the GA cannot and will allow significant number of core systems to join together to form a nation that can threaten them until the MA is destroyed.

Sigs wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:It doesn't have to be very secret. It's already widely known in military circles that the better SDFs have more aggressive upgrade/refit schedules than the SLN; and are quicker to push new tech into deployment. That's just not something you need to keep secret.

Everyone assumes the Beowulf's ships, while not refitted with all the Manticoran toys, are probably at least on par with the pre-war MA designs, and probably with some additional upgrade to their anti-missile capabilities during the war era. So somewhere around twice as effective in missile combat as a Scientist or Vega class SD. And they've very likely not the only large SDF who has been paying attention to the impact of laserhead (or even towed pod) combat evolution.

The question is, can they hold off the SLN? If Manticore, Haven and Grayson were unavailable to reinforce Beowulf, could Beowulf have defeated Task Force 11.6 at roughly 3 to 1 odds? And if they had been able to win, how many of their ships would have been battle worthy at the end of the day? The SLN has roughly 1,800-1,900 SD's in their order of battle… assuming that 5%-10% of their reserve is of equal technological level and they have the means to mobilize them, they might be able to add 400-800 SD's to their fleet over say 1 year, so within 12 months of the Second Battle of Manticore, the SLN could be back to their pre war strength, which means little if they are facing the GA but if they are facing superior ships of and SDF it might mean quite a lot, if an SDF has 50 SD's that are equal to 150 or 200 SLN SD's it would mean they can kill a lot of the SLN's ships but at the end of the day, when the SLN shows up with 500 SD's and support ships and blows away their entire fleet, the superiority means little.

Sigs wrote:

SWM wrote:You keep repeating this, but we've already answered you. We've already suggested that the Alignment would not be stupid enough to cause unexplained disappearances only among the non-RF systems. It would be a simple matter to arrange apparent disappearances among the RF worlds, as well.

And I keep repeating that it still makes it highly suspicious if the RF systems suffer losses while everyone else suffers crippling losses.

kzt wrote:You should have invested more in your police department.

The few systems with a long tradition of having a large, powerful and well trained SDF are going to do a lot better than those who chose to not to invest in that sort of pointless expense.

SWM wrote:

Sigs wrote:My point is that their plan is as of the last book undoable, this means that the GA cannot and will allow significant number of core systems to join together to form a nation that can threaten them until the MA is destroyed.

If that's the point you've been trying to make, then I don't understand why you are arguing any more. Pretty much everyone agrees that the Alignment plan is completely trashed and cannot succeed. No one is suggesting that the Alignment could make that plan work at this point.

Sigs wrote:

kzt wrote:You should have invested more in your police department.

The few systems with a long tradition of having a large, powerful and well trained SDF are going to do a lot better than those who chose to not to invest in that sort of pointless expense.

Ok, how large are those SDF's that we are talking about? Is there a number? Is there a hint to their qualitative difference other than a very general that they paid attention and are better than the SLN 1 on 1?

The argument would be different if the RF's 12 systems had combined total of 1,200 technologically superior SD's then if they had 240 technologically superior SD's for those same 12 systems.

If others that may end up being better protected continuously suffer crippling "misfortunes" while the RF systems always suffered slight setbacks it might not cause any suspicions the first or second time, but on the 20th time someone will be bound to ask some hard questions. And considering that at the time of the last book the GA was mighty paranoid and trying to unravel a conspiracy lasting 600+ years they might make the same connection.

SWM wrote:You are the one who keeps talking about crippling losses. I certainly am not. I think you are assuming a much more aggressive use of the spider ships than I am. The spider ships are meant to be a mysterious and much more subtle force than you are proposing. It is supposed to nudge things the right way, not force things. They aren't going to be as obvious as you keep saying.

Sigs wrote:

SWM wrote:If that's the point you've been trying to make, then I don't understand why you are arguing any more. Pretty much everyone agrees that the Alignment plan is completely trashed and cannot succeed. No one is suggesting that the Alignment could make that plan work at this point.

It seems that others are arguing that the plan can still be made right because of the qualitative difference of the SDF's in the RF.

SWM wrote:Ok, how large are those SDF's that we are talking about? Is there a number? Is there a hint to their qualitative difference other than a very general that they paid attention and are better than the SLN 1 on 1?

The argument would be different if the RF's 12 systems had combined total of 1,200 technologically superior SD's then if they had 240 technologically superior SD's for those same 12 systems.

If others that may end up being better protected continuously suffer crippling "misfortunes" while the RF systems always suffered slight setbacks it might not cause any suspicions the first or second time, but on the 20th time someone will be bound to ask some hard questions. And considering that at the time of the last book the GA was mighty paranoid and trying to unravel a conspiracy lasting 600+ years they might make the same connection.

Sigs wrote:

SWM wrote:You are the one who keeps talking about crippling losses. I certainly am not. I think you are assuming a much more aggressive use of the spider ships than I am. The spider ships are meant to be a mysterious and much more subtle force than you are proposing. It is supposed to nudge things the right way, not force things. They aren't going to be as obvious as you keep saying.

The GA doesn't know what is going on. The remnants of the SLN will be spread amongst many of the core systems. For the RF to succeed, there needs to be panic and chaos thus forcing core worlds to essentially surrender their independence for protection. Otherwise how do you convince 200 or 300 core worlds to let the 12 RF systems lead them all.