Spoiler Alert!!! New book possibilities/probabilities

drothgery wrote:The League has no interest in violating the Eridani Edict. A universe where it's violated is not a good one for the human race, most of which currently are League citizens.

Be kind of a problem if someone acting under the SLs flag, like say the SLN, was to put a frac C missile into Beowulf, eh? Make a bit of PR issue, perhaps?

And it is too bad that all the fancy technology needed to complete the ships that Haven is building is being manufactured in Beowulf, kind of throws a kink into that plans? And that's also were the new RMN missile production lines were set up.

So yeah, wouldn't it just be AWFUL from the point of view of the MA if this planet full of many of their least favorite people was to get blowed up by the SLN? But how would they ever manage to arrange something like that? Perhaps we should ask PO Harder?

Erls wrote:Not to get fully away from Beowulf, but talk of the RF and polity sizes got me thinking about Maya. One thing I will be real interested in seeing is how the Maya Sector continues with the Sepoy Option.

The Maya Sector is very well positioned to expand their influence on that side of SL space and become a stable region post-SL. IF they are able to expand their reach to Phoenix, they would have a trade network that is likely second only to Manticore (Joshua - Beowulf trade run with the various Wormholes linking the rest). They are ideally situated to be attractive to both Manticore and Haven as a trade partner, and possible ally - or at the least friendly - polity.

Finally, although this isn't yet known.. The Torch wormhole will one day be very attractive and useful both for hunting the MAlign, but also for trade. A Maya Sector free of the SL that has already (twice) helped the freed slaves on Torch and is located in the same region may be an attractive partner for Torch long term, and further serve to ingratiate Maya into the good graces of the SEM, Beowulf, and Haven.

I still suspect the Maya Gov is an alpha line. And that Maya is a secondary op for the RF to quickly expand one of those 12 main-line systems. Acquiring tech from the Haven Sector in the process. Our only intros to him are second-hand thoughts and observations. Nothing in Text from the Maya Govenor himself.

kzt wrote:

drothgery wrote:The League has no interest in violating the Eridani Edict. A universe where it's violated is not a good one for the human race, most of which currently are League citizens.

Be kind of a problem if someone acting under the SLs flag, like say the SLN, was to put a frac C missile into Beowulf, eh? Make a bit of PR issue, perhaps?

Ordering the SLN to violate the EE would cause a general mutiny in the SLN and widespread secession movements including rich deep core systems (possibly even Sol itself). There's zero upside to it for the Mandarins, who want to keep their jobs. And false-flag EE violations are harder than many on this board seem to think.

drothgery wrote: And false-flag EE violations are harder than many on this board seem to think.

I fire an arrow in the air, where it goes I do not know.

Montrose Toast wrote:I still suspect the Maya Gov is an alpha line. And that Maya is a secondary op for the RF to quickly expand one of those 12 main-line systems. Acquiring tech from the Haven Sector in the process. Our only intros to him are second-hand thoughts and observations. Nothing in Text from the Maya Govenor himself.

I thought one scene with Barregos have some nervous issues about the Sepoy Option after the Battle of Torch and Roszak helping him through them had Barregos as the viewpoint character.

At any rate, it'd be a violation of KISS. The Alignment does not need and should not aspire to control everything. It's enough, quite enough, to create conditions that will motivate independent people (ultimately, the entire League and some points beyond) to tear the League apart for them. A courageous OFS governor in the prosperous, forward-looking Maya Sector prepared to denounce the illegal, unconstitutional, high-handed actions of the Mandarins and their transtellar masters does that perfectly. Something of the sort is entirely likely in the League they've helped corrupt - no reason they have to have someone there to BE that governor/revolutionary. At most, greasing the wheels to get him there in the first place and keep him there when he lost OFS support would do.

They just have to push the right stones to get the avalanche rolling - they don't have to be every pebble.

drothgery wrote:Ordering the SLN to violate the EE would cause a general mutiny in the SLN and widespread secession movements including rich deep core systems (possibly even Sol itself). There's zero upside to it for the Mandarins, who want to keep their jobs. And false-flag EE violations are harder than many on this board seem to think.

It wouldn't be hard at all. Program some of the pods that "Technodyne" is providing to the fleet that is about to attack Beowulf to ignore targeting instructions from said fleet and instead obey orders from a spider ship behind the SLN fleet. Or target on a beacon that is on a ship in orbit around the planet. Or probably a half a dozen things I can't think of at the moment. A false flag is much easier when you can use the actual entity you want to frame to preform it for you.

The league will have contingencies. Plans ands lists of places to attack in the systems, say a Nantes dosed person activates a programs to launch missiles to these places. That way the league believes that one of their own seeing their death, ordered a strike to make them pay. They would then try to cover everything that makes them look bad.
Can some one send me the page number and book where the mandarins discuss their response to Beowolf stopping their use of the terminii?

Somebody hitting Beowulf with a fractional C missile is not impossible nor even difficult in the middle of an engagement between the SLN and BSDF.

The chance that one of more missiles launched in a relativly close (not out on the fringe of the hyper limit) engagement at 1) BSDF ships, 2) orbital infrastructre of Beowulf, any of the close (last ditch defense systems of pods or stations) military assets is always there. Missiles are "supposed" to self destruct when the reach the end of their flight perameters (say powered flight + x km(or y amount of time)). That can fail.

The more likely scenario is a person or persons "unknown" messes with the instructions of weapons which case them to "miss" a target relatively close to Beowulf and then target the planet itself. That would be a SLN weapon though the sequence nessisary to orchestrate both the miss and course change could be difficult
They would have to time both shooting at something -close enough to make it look like it was shooting at X but ending up far enough away not to be engaged by local defense because the weapon is going to pass too far away to engage it's nominal target and is ignored by defences in favor of something more dangerous, and changing course- a powered flight maneuver after it "missed" it's nominal target is probably going to catch the attention of at least the automated defense tactical systems or an operator.
Sure, you might get away with putting something into a ballistic path that would curve it into the planet but would that work within the placement of the battle and getting the weapon into the proper ballistic course with something fired from with the hyper-limit of the system in the chaos of a battle there.

On the other hand, if you have a spider drive weapon being accelerated in from way outside the system and building speed without using an impeller drive, you could just shoot for your chosen spot on the planet. Planets can't dodge. You can calculate the ballistics to hit a given spot on a planet from a LONG way away. Spotting an accelerating weapon using spider drive comming in with NO detectable recognizable emissions and the anti-visual detection stealth of a Ghost is going to be really really tough. Particularly tough if this is happening in the middle of an actual battle taking place inside the system. So the Alignment takes a variation of the Graser Torpedo and fires it hit a major city on Beowulf. If they know the SLN's time table, they could even make a reasonable guess as to when to launch it to impact durring time the SLN ships would be within the system and at least nominally in range of the planet when the weapon got there. Could be really sneeky and come "up" or quatering in from the lower diagonal quadrant of the system relative to the planet and avoid flying though any anticipated ship formations and use what would then typically less scanned areas.

You only have to get one weapon like this to hit "close" to a major inhabited area. If it arrives when weapons are flying about in a general battle the likelyhood is that the SLN is going to get blamed even if there is any possible hint that the trajectory (if it can be determined) could be not from any of the SLN ships.

Montrose Toast wrote:I still suspect the Maya Gov is an alpha line. And that Maya is a secondary op for the RF to quickly expand one of those 12 main-line systems. Acquiring tech from the Haven Sector in the process. Our only intros to him are second-hand thoughts and observations. Nothing in Text from the Maya Govenor himself.

I have thought that myself, however two things keeping coming back to me that causes me to believe that Maya is on the up and up.

1- Barregos (sp?) is someone who actually cares for the people of his sector. We have textev about that. We also know that he is someone the OFS has tried to have removed in the past to get someone more 'obedient' to their wishes in power on Smoking Frog.

2- Most importantly, Torch/Congo. If Barregos was actually one of the Alpha lines who would be taking a leading role in the RF, we have textev that he would be towards one of the inner rings of the onion. More importantly than that, the MAlign would not have an Alpha line sponsor an attack on Verdant Vista, especially with the wormhole there and where it ends up. If Barregos was an Alpha line, he would have done everything he could to keep his Frontier Fleet detachments as far away from there as possible.

For those two main reasons, as of now I think that Maya is on the up and up and not part of the RF.

Why do so many people think the Alignment would want an Eridani Edict violation? Sure it would help fragment the League but the last thing the Alignment wants is humanity bombing itself to extinction or the stone age. Hell they don;t even want Beowulf wiped out because they want it around to be forced to admit the Leonard Detweiler was right when their plan is complete.