League Survival

JohnRoth wrote:I'd suggest you look at Chapter 58 of Torch of Freedom, which says explicitly that the MAlign had been trying to do that for a significant length of time - and had not succeeded, which is why they developed the Cataphract. It's on page 533ff of the hardcover; the search term is "the Mesan Alignment had no reservations".

What they were running into is the drive interference issue. Which can be solved in two way: Cleverly via the trick that resulted in the grav lance as a side effect, or brute-force, via distance. They failed at option 1 and decided to go to option 2. Option 2 does scale beyond 1 stage, it just gets quite long. But space is very big.

Oh, and the grav lance as a side effect of solving the wedge interference problem means it has to be pretty heavily classified, even though it is considered obsolete.

JohnRoth wrote:I'd suggest you look at Chapter 58 of Torch of Freedom, which says explicitly that the MAlign had been trying to do that for a significant length of time - and had not succeeded, which is why they developed the Cataphract. It's on page 533ff of the hardcover; the search term is "the Mesan Alignment had no reservations".

Cataphracts are Good Enough for the role I'm envisioning until true MDMs are widespread.

drothgery wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:I'd suggest you look at Chapter 58 of Torch of Freedom, which says explicitly that the MAlign had been trying to do that for a significant length of time - and had not succeeded, which is why they developed the Cataphract. It's on page 533ff of the hardcover; the search term is "the Mesan Alignment had no reservations".

Cataphracts are Good Enough for the role I'm envisioning until true MDMs are widespread.

The notion that MDMs are going to become widespread seems to be remarkably hard to kill. I'd suggest reviewing the text on Project Mjolner (slash on the o), beginning on page 147 of the trade paperback of House of Steel. The search text is "a true long-ranged shipkiller, not a mere "nuisance." That doesn't mean that nobody will do it - there is a reason why Beowulf was chosen for a new MDM factory rather than Bolthole. Being able to build a true MDM is the tip of a healthy and thriving manufacturing sector where most of the components don't present a horde of special problems.

The RMN is expecting them to become common. Hence the huge cruiser design.

JohnRoth wrote:The notion that MDMs are going to become widespread seems to be remarkably hard to kill.

They certainly will (or at least as widespread as capital ships). If Haven and the Andermani could do it, then so can others. How long it takes is up in the air, but once one independent defense contractor makes them available for sale, everyone of consequence will have them in short order.

My hypothesis, FWIW, is that there's a very strong 'not invented here' element to the Alignment's top research teams, so they have trouble accepting radical tech that they didn't develop. It would make sense for them to discount the achievements of 'normals'.

kzt wrote:The RMN is expecting them to become common. Hence the huge cruiser design.

The RMN undoubtedly has its institutional blind spots, but a lack of foresight isn't one of them. Especially since they've been thinking about anti-missile doctrine since shortly after King Roger's time, if not earlier. As far as I can tell, the issue isn't so much expecting a lot of other people to get MDMs as it is doctrine to be able to defend against their own weapons.

JohnRoth wrote:

kzt wrote:The RMN is expecting them to become common. Hence the huge cruiser design.

The RMN undoubtedly has its institutional blind spots, but a lack of foresight isn't one of them. Especially since they've been thinking about anti-missile doctrine since shortly after King Roger's time, if not earlier. As far as I can tell, the issue isn't so much expecting a lot of other people to get MDMs as it is doctrine to be able to defend against their own weapons.

Based upon the assumption that future opponents will seek to replicate the RMN's capabilities. They got that right as far as Haven and the Andies(and Erewhon-Maya) are concerned, but can't account for every surprise technology someone else may have or develop.

drothgery wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:The notion that MDMs are going to become widespread seems to be remarkably hard to kill.

They certainly will (or at least as widespread as capital ships). If Haven and the Andermani could do it, then so can others. How long it takes is up in the air, but once one independent defense contractor makes them available for sale, everyone of consequence will have them in short order.

My hypothesis, FWIW, is that there's a very strong 'not invented here' element to the Alignment's top research teams, so they have trouble accepting radical tech that they didn't develop. It would make sense for them to discount the achievements of 'normals'.

The MAN and the Alignment's top brass (in private) have been portrayed as careful not to discount the capabilities of normals. Granted, you don't have to take care against a possible bad habit if you have no inclination whatever to adopt it. But it's not the sort of thing that just cripples their ability to account rationally for enemy capabilities and the value of matching them.

They may have suffered, some of them, from a sense that spider-drive operations make impeller missile advances irrelevant to them, but the MAN has expected that conventional arm - composed of the RF SDF's as a core - to be the primary armed force of the Alignment, and the spider-drive MAN as a secondary tool. So those people at that level certainly haven't discounted Manticoran-derived impeller-warfare technologies.

They haven't had Manticore's ability to take public ideas from all over and develop them in a well-funded operation that they don't also have to keep utterly secret in terms of its very existence. Meanwhile, Manticore has nevertheless kept the results of Gram and similar initiatives secret, I mean, apart from their effects in battle. Haven developed approximately matching stuff with a lot of Solarian tech transfers and their own war-spawned experience and urgency putting them to work. The Alignment's never had that latter either.

They probably could build the no-special-tech-advance, ridiculously multi-drive (or multi-stage, if you will) system defense missiles. Maybe they even have. But they are also quite possibly larger than anyone yet has wanted to build, and without FTL coms, the accuracy they would have at stupendous range may make them not worth the effort. (Or at least, that's arguable. If you can strike with impunity, needing to take awhile and use a lot of missiles seems to me an acceptable bargain, up to some extreme point.)

SWM wrote:I never said that 12 RF systems were going to lead ALL of the core worlds. No one except you has suggested that.

Isn't it literally the whole point of the RF to eventually replace the League? Can't really consider it a success if the replacement nation is 10% of the League's core systems.

SWM wrote:I think the plan was much more subtle than that. I believe the plan was to use the chaos to build much smaller coalitions. Only over time would they grow and coalesce. I don't think the Alignment was planning to crush or cripple all rival successor states.

The problem with that plan would be that a number of core worlds have the means to create a powerful navy. So if the MA/RF wanted to unite a large part of the League's core systems then they wouldn't allow those very systems to develop mature navies. If you get 20 or 30 successor states that get the bulk of the collapsing SLN wall and screen, that may be enough to remove the immediacy from the situation and buy them enough time to build their military complex and reorganize the military forces under their control to become an unmovable force in their own right. Then instead of the MA and the RF controlling 80%,90% or even 100% of the League, they control a small fraction and compete for the others with a number of (at that point) powerful nations that can challenge them.

SWM wrote:And, once again, the GA is irrelevant to the plan, because the plan never envisioned anything like the GA existing, or even Haven or Manticore existing as major forces. Now that the GA has been formed, the plan is in ruins, and we don't know how the Alignment will react.

We can discuss how they are going to react and if they might still try to continue with that plan.

SWM wrote:They'll be scattered, of course. Which means no single system is going to be facing the entire SLN, just as I said. You're argument about facing the entire SLN is ridiculous.

Yeah they will be scattered, but before they scatter the mandarins will likely not take kindly to anyone leaving the League. Beowulf is right next door the the GA and its few hundred SD's that can destroy every SD and DN in SLN service many times over and they are still waiting willing to attack Beowulf…what do you think happens when a system that may not have the GA right next door to them decides to split? Even if they have significantly more advanced ships they will still face overwhelming odds up until the League and the SLN start collapsing.


What happens if a month after Beowulf declares their desire to withdraw from the League another member makes the same decision and they also have a few dozen SD's, do you think the mandarins will let them go or go and smack them down?