Honorverse ramblings and musings

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:But will it be so easy for them to get out? The League isn't just going to twiddle its thumbs and give the little ducks a push 'across the street.' The SLN still has plenty of ships ...

Although the SLN still has enormous numbers of ships in absolute terms, it does NOT have "plenty of ships." It doesn't even have enough ships to police the protectorates and Verge without the reputation for invincibility -- ref: a comment about being able to send a destroyer when a division of BCs was what was really needed, or WTTE.

In Adm Kingsford's status report the lack of sufficient numbers for really effective commerce raiding is mentioned, without any mention of ships needed to suppress rebellion.

The SLN is planning on sending 100 SDs (and minimal screen) to Beowulf to intimidate a desired result from the Secession vote. If that is the level of force the SLN thinks it needs to subdue rebellious SDFs, then they have enough ships to deal with about 0.5-1.0% of League Members. That's hardly "plenty of ships."

Point taken.

But it brings to mind the parody of the lone wolf...

One robber walks into a bar carrying a single six shooter. He aims to relieve everyone of their very expensive Rolex.

A lone wolf states "Hey, he only has six bullets, but there are a dozen of us."

The lone wolf dies and/or loses his Rolex.

.

Duckk wrote:Picking out some infodumps:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5763&p=146341

You and I are going to have to agree to disagree. Among other things, you seem to see the SL as far more monolithic than I do, and you seem to severely overestimate how difficult the RMN will find it to protect any Manty shipping which reenters SL space. Or, for that matter, to provide the coercion/cover to encourage systems outside the Core to reopen their interstellar commerce under the GA's hospices. The League is anything but "monolithic" in terms of the degree of loyalty the vast majority of its non-Core star systems feel to the New Chicago-based bureaucrats or two OFS.

The transstellars whose survival depends on interstellar commerce are at best amoral were anything remotely like "patriotism" is involved. They've been part of an essentially corrupt system of cynical payoffs and bribes for so long that they will readily trade with the enemy — or allow the enemy to provide the necessary shipping to trade with their existing customers — even in time of war.

The League system governments in the Shell and (even more) the ones in the Verge are also going to feel a very limited sense of loyalty to the central non-government in New Chicago. One of the problems that the Mandarins have is that the bureaucracy the League has constructed instead of a participatory, responsive political government does not engender loyalty. It creates clients, and those clients' loyalty to their patrons is dependent on how well it works for the clients. Given an opportunity to become their own masters — or to at least find more generous patrons — they'll take it. And the mechanics of how interstellar trade can be reestablished even during wartime under Grand Alliance auspices and protection are a lot simpler than you seem to be assuming.


viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2179&p=42713

However, that's scarcely the only reason why it is extraordinarily unlikely that 1,800 star systems would decide to seek vengeance against the Grand Alliance. Those eighteen hundred star systems include quite a few star systems that aren't full members and don't much like the League. For instance, there's this little outfit called Maya. Those star systems are included in the total count for the League's systems, but somehow I don't have the feeling that they would rally round to avenge one of the Core systems which have been cheerfully allowing OFS to have its way in the protectorates just because someone came in and blew that Core system's industrial, economic, and military infrastructure into dustbunnies. In addition to "League star systems" which are currently in protectorate status, there are also Shell member systems which were fairly recently in protectorate status and would cheerfully go their own way as either an independent system or in association with other independent systems which had shaken the dust of the Solarian League from their sandals. That is, in fact, a large part of what the Mesan Alignment is counting on in its plans for the meltdown and replacement of the League.

I truly appreciate this post Duckk. Loads of info there. I've only time for a cursory glance but it'll keep 'til I can raid the fridge.

Thanks again.

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:Sanctions! "Oh, they are working." Heard that before on Earth.

It's a bit different when the "sanctions" eliminate the entire financial base of the enemy. The League does not have the kind of funding structure any normal state would. Keep repeating that til it sinks in. If it cannot collect tariffs and fees from interstellar trade, or squeeze protectorates, It. Has. No. Money. Having no money and no permission to borrow means no function. That's not a disaster for the member states either - they got along without the League before, they'll get along without the League after. No interstellar trade to speak of is a medium-sized problem for them - it won't mean starvation, but it will mean an economic hit - but they can opt out of the League and resume that at any time.

And they also don't appear to have to ability to print/create money. So they can't just inflate their way out of the budget crunch to get through the war (and deal with the aftermath later).

Plus they don't appear to have the legal authority to seize or nationalize companies. So if they can't pay their suppliers because they ran out of money then they can't legally force the suppliers to keep building ships, providing food, etc. And an extralegal attempt to coerce them is likely to cause a strong negative reaction from the system government where the supplier is located (like leaving the league serious).

The League bureaucracy is a level of hamstrung "government" we've basically never seen on Earth. Kind of like if the League of Nations tried to fund a new navy but relied on member donations for income and had to buy everything cash upfront at market rates. Far different that the US Federal Government funding a new navy during the run-up to WWII.



OTOH if the majority of the League somehow pulled together and formed a real, cohesive, interstellar government, with the normal powers of such; and were given a decade or so, they likely could come roaring back and hope to take on the whole GA.
That's why the GA's strategy is to avoid things that seem likely to hammer the League into a unified economic or military force.

Jonathan_S wrote:The League bureaucracy is a level of hamstrung "government" we've basically never seen on Earth. Kind of like if the League of Nations tried to fund a new navy but relied on member donations for income and had to buy everything cash upfront at market rates. Far different that the US Federal Government funding a new navy during the run-up to WWII.

I'm not sure about never having seen a government like that on Earth. But it's certainly not the sort of thing we've seen for several hundred years. If you took, say, European monarchies before nationalism, before the notion of absolute monarchy or the divine right of kings, before effective tax schemes or national bureaucracies - the classic feudal states - and then made sure the "king" was not even a great noble in his own right, you may have a fair image of the power of the Solarian League. A start, at any rate.

But then you'd want to make sure that there's a sense of patriotism and national unity that points, not at the League/king, but instead at the system/baron, and give that king his weak feudal grasp over many hundred barons. Admittedly, this "king" has a standing army and the "barons" tend not to, but the "barbarian hordes" have a vastly better army in quality and only somewhat smaller in quantity now.

OTOH if the majority of the League somehow pulled together and formed a real, cohesive, interstellar government, with the normal powers of such; and were given a decade or so, they likely could come roaring back and hope to take on the whole GA.
That's why the GA's strategy is to avoid things that seem likely to hammer the League into a unified economic or military force.

Right. I think cthia keeps feeling this gut-level need to assume the League either already is that real, cohesive government, or that it's one Great Man waking up away from having one. No one else is sharing that assumption.

Weird Harold wrote:The SLN is planning on sending 100 SDs (and minimal screen) to Beowulf to intimidate a desired result from the Secession vote. If that is the level of force the SLN thinks it needs to subdue rebellious SDFs, then they have enough ships to deal with about 0.5-1.0% of League Members. That's hardly "plenty of ships."

Nit: Beowulf has one of the largest SDFs and there are only about eighteen SDFs with wallers. The majority of SDFs only have LACs. So on paper, even after losing 11th Fleet and Crandall, the SLN still has enough combat power to overwhelm all of them. It remains to be seen how many more SDs they will lose and just how upgraded some SDFs have become.

JeffEngel wrote:It's a bit different when the "sanctions" eliminate the entire financial base of the enemy. The League does not have the kind of funding structure any normal state would. Keep repeating that til it sinks in. If it cannot collect tariffs and fees from interstellar trade, or squeeze protectorates, It. Has. No. Money. Having no money and no permission to borrow means no function. That's not a disaster for the member states either - they got along without the League before, they'll get along without the League after. No interstellar trade to speak of is a medium-sized problem for them - it won't mean starvation, but it will mean an economic hit - but they can opt out of the League and resume that at any time.

Actually, before the League, some of them did not get along. Someone took out Epsilon Eridani and there were other atrocities before that. There have been references of grudges carried through the centuries, suppressed by the overwhelming League. With that gone, some conflicts will reignite on their own, others fanned by MAlign scheming and there'll be opportunistic arsonists.

munroburton wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Having no money and no permission to borrow means no function. That's not a disaster for the member states either - they got along without the League before, they'll get along without the League after. No interstellar trade to speak of is a medium-sized problem for them - it won't mean starvation, but it will mean an economic hit - but they can opt out of the League and resume that at any time.

Actually, before the League, some of them did not get along. Someone took out Epsilon Eridani and there were other atrocities before that. There have been references of grudges carried through the centuries, suppressed by the overwhelming League. With that gone, some conflicts will reignite on their own, others fanned by MAlign scheming and there'll be opportunistic arsonists.

Granted, granted. But if hostilities are still being suppressed by the League, the suppress-ees may not be League fans either. (Maybe they should be, but humans will be human.) Some of those grudges have faded over time - take Saltash as a microcosm, it's not likely to go back up in flames if OFS leaves.

Of course, there are also likely all sorts of nasty feelings that have grown up under the League that didn't predate it that the League's presence has deterred from getting hot and violent.

Time has made avoiding EE violations something people do out of moral repugnance in addition to fear of the SLN. That time may be one of the few genuine services the League has done. The repugnance isn't going to vanish with the League, and the GA at least is going to exercise a deterrent effect too. (Heck, Manticore with juice and Old Chicago without it is going to be one of the best things ever to happen to interstellar law.) But it doesn't take many people without that moral scruple to break planets, and it's going to be some time before the deterrent force of the GA really sinks in, so things are likely to get worse that way before they get better.

But if the universe goes crazy, the League isn't in a position now to offer much if any protection; it's not in a position to get you interstellar trade and the other side IS; the other side may be able to offer some protection, and it's not going to be soaking you or handing your resources and property off to an interstellar as a price for it.

The only thing keeping the League together is the modest speed at which its embarrassments are transmitted and the speed at which the system governments read the writing on the wall. They may be in for some tough times - they may be the source of some tough times for some neighbors - but the current League isn't an answer to their current problems.

munroburton wrote:<snip>

Actually, before the League, some of them did not get along. Someone took out Epsilon Eridani and there were other atrocities before that. There have been references of grudges carried through the centuries, suppressed by the overwhelming League. With that gone, some conflicts will reignite on their own, others fanned by MAlign scheming and there'll be opportunistic arsonists.

I'm wondering how many petty arguments the MAlign will inflame. We really can't discount them - who would have thought that 1 disease ridden Albanian separatist killing an unliked nobleman would set off WW I, or 20 Muslims with 50 hours of flight training between them would cause the US to invade Iraq and Afganistan?

If a man walked into the 2016 Republican National Convention and screamed "The South will rise again!" before detonating a bomb, would it cause the US to rip itself apart? It's an odd and extreme example, but with the right setting and gas poured on the flames just right, who knows?

munroburton wrote:Nit: Beowulf has one of the largest SDFs and there are only about eighteen SDFs with wallers. The majority of SDFs only have LACs. So on paper, even after losing 11th Fleet and Crandall, the SLN still has enough combat power to overwhelm all of them. It remains to be seen how many more SDs they will lose and just how upgraded some SDFs have become.

The lack of ships is the in-universe opinion of a SLN officer, not mine.

Frontier Fleet doesn't have enough ships for its peacetime requirements, let alone the kind of wartime tasking that Adm Kingsford proposes. Battle Fleet is down to less than one SD per member system. No matter how they allocate resources, they cannot respond to League-wide simultaneous rebellions. The SLN can concentrate forces and make rebelious member wait in line to be intimidated and crushed, or they can disperse their assets and worry about running a single ship into a GA squadron inciting secession.

When Filerta crossed the hyper-limit into the Manticore System, he had been warned and Harrington announced that- with the intrusion of a military force (that was a good sized intrusion- a state of war existed with the SL.
The fact that Manticore and Haven have not yet actualy gone hunting SLN ships is besides the point.

Don't count Lacoon I and II as clasical sanctions. They are effective tactical and stratigic movers. It is not "I will not let you do X, it is 1) we are ACTUALY pulling all or merchant shipping out of SL space and anything you actual control, 2) We NOW HOLD all the wormholes. None of your shipping or warships are going through. What you can mover through hyperspace doesn't really matter- you are so screwed.

JeffEngel wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:The League bureaucracy is a level of hamstrung "government" we've basically never seen on Earth. Kind of like if the League of Nations tried to fund a new navy but relied on member donations for income and had to buy everything cash upfront at market rates. Far different that the US Federal Government funding a new navy during the run-up to WWII.

I'm not sure about never having seen a government like that on Earth. But it's certainly not the sort of thing we've seen for several hundred years. If you took, say, European monarchies before nationalism, before the notion of absolute monarchy or the divine right of kings, before effective tax schemes or national bureaucracies - the classic feudal states - and then made sure the "king" was not even a great noble in his own right, you may have a fair image of the power of the Solarian League. A start, at any rate.

But then you'd want to make sure that there's a sense of patriotism and national unity that points, not at the League/king, but instead at the system/baron, and give that king his weak feudal grasp over many hundred barons. Admittedly, this "king" has a standing army and the "barons" tend not to, but the "barbarian hordes" have a vastly better army in quality and only somewhat smaller in quantity now.

OTOH if the majority of the League somehow pulled together and formed a real, cohesive, interstellar government, with the normal powers of such; and were given a decade or so, they likely could come roaring back and hope to take on the whole GA.
That's why the GA's strategy is to avoid things that seem likely to hammer the League into a unified economic or military force.

Right. I think cthia keeps feeling this gut-level need to assume the League either already is that real, cohesive government, or that it's one Great Man waking up away from having one. No one else is sharing that assumption.

Cthia does not assume that the League is a real cohesive government, but that an entity forged in its fires, born of the crust of League politics and intimately familiar with its psephology will know what buttons to push, strings to pull, wheels to grease, palms to fill, ears to borrow and markers to call, in order to achieve some intermediate goals. A League the size that it is, does not just die overnight. And I've never agreed on the perception of how quickly the League may be able to introduce game changing technologies. If there is a Protector Benjamin within the League that can cut through the red tape, then the fat lady may have a few extra stanzas to sing. I'm just saying.

Of course no one shares his sentiments. It's cthia, the one man voice against the rage of the machine. And also, he is someone who likes to think for himself, go against the grain, fuel lively conversation and wear a very lonely hat of the devil's advocate. Also because...

The League is huge. Even I didn't realize how much so in the beginning. I have surfed the gauntlet of forum classes. The League is thousands of systems larger than the GA. Not all of them are going to want to secede. Many have been prospering from the flow of monies, reaping the benefits of the booties and have been a part of the good old boy network for centuries and have no beef with its benefactors. Even the League must have realized that it has to have a reliable circle of member states. How many of those -- within the League's thousands of worlds -- are there? And what is the size of this collective, faithful entity in comparison to Haven or even Manticore, who successfully fought each other -- or certainly, by comparison, Manticore who successfully fought the much larger Haven? Of the thousands of worlds that are still left after that, let's say 75 % want out. That leaves... what, still thousands of worlds -- thousands of times larger than what Haven, or Manticore was privileged to draw from, during their successive wars of mutual destruction?

Keep in mind that I've only had benefit of a cursory glance at Duckk's postings of RFCs infodumps.

The League isn't a monolithic entity. That's only true inasmuch as there is a lack of cohesion between the League proper, member states and a central government. But technically the League is a monolithic entity -- hence the L-E-A-G-U-E, not Leagues and I'm really not being dismissive. The League can rally the mugwumps - how numerous are they?

They've been chastising rebellious member states for centuries and would have become experts in the manipulation of the government to achieve their means. The Mandarins can use the predictive lethargy of the League government to its advantage and the fact that it is so slow at making decisions. The same as had faced the Grayson Keys when Benjamin stepped in. Likewise, the Mandarins can set a precedent -- in this time of unprecedented League danger -- to seize the reins, temporarily. In fact, it seems that it is their responsibility to do so and to fail at it would seem, in itself, treasonous. Again, somewhat reminiscent of what Protector Benjamin faced.

Who is to argue with the Navy? Why should the SLN care what its member states think of them if they use strong arm tactics? They've been doing it all along. All the SLN needs to do is to destroy the GA in one fell swoop -- killing three entities with one operation. Whether or not the League can actually accomplish such a task has no bearing on what they might think or will ultimately attempt to do. Desperation fuels adrenalin. All they need to do is to strong arm its members long enough to destroy the GA in one short victorious battle. Then back to business as usual.

The would be rebellious member states have NO guarantees that the huge League WON'T be successful against the Manticorans. Member states know how vast their League is. A major fleet battle that is lost by the League does not change the average man in the street's perception of what they think will ultimately be dispatched against the Manticorans and the RMN. Weakened and vulnerable - are a bridge apart.

Again, when Beowulf is punished by the League, other member states will know that they're still vulnerable. Why should the League not act militarily to stop rampant defection 'during the existing 'state of war?'' In fact, it appears to me that the League does have legal grounds to stand on and can indeed charge member states with the crime of treason. Member states just can't secede in the middle of a war. That is treasonous. And if one member state is dealt with severely -- as I have always envisioned was the Leagues' past MO -- may create many a lone wolf secessionist -- ostensibly cowards -- not wanting to participate in any further examples of League 'negative feedback.' Are we forgetting that these are the same people who conceived of Frontier Fleet's 'contingency plans?'

Yet, member states are seemingly supposed to just somehow, suddenly grow a pair of brass balls to defy the League just because some upstart mini-neobarb in the backwoods of nowhere fortuitously won a couple of skirmishes because the SLN wasn't yet serious about smacking them down.

The author of the Harrington plan never said or thought that a political war of attrition against the League would be easy or definitive. It won't be, at least it shouldn't be.


Late edit: Persistent visits from Gram Pol - Grammar Police.
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