Next Bolthole devellopment

What does anybody think the next Haven/Grayson/Star Empire development would be ?

- From the Mackbride interrogation I would guess one of the two Messan's improvments could be re-discovered.

- To prevent a second "Oyster bay" attack, some kind of sensor net based on drones/ships involvment. (The cloaking device would have problemes if the recons platforms would multiply or not ?)

What are your thoughts ?

There isn't enough time for anything. Bolthole is far enough from Haven that it takes a long time to reach. Haven take a long time to reach from Manticore. So they are going to drag the researchers and their families across the galaxy and set up shop. Think that happened in a week? Then they have no equipment (having it all blowed up real good) so the first order of things is to figure out what Haven is doing and is capable of and tell the Haven researchers all the deep secrets of RMN tech.

Yeah, that's not going to happen quickly. They have been in a hot at war for 18 years and a cold war for 20 before that and everyone involved is deeply indoctrinated into the need to keep secrets from exactly the people they need to talk to.

And if they do come up with something, they need to either figure out how to make it with the crappy tech Haven has or ship it to Beowulf and then get them involved.

This all takes a lot of time. And if the GA hasn't resolved their issues with the SL in some final fashion in a few years they are dead, as the SL will crush them in a long and serious war. So inside a year either everyone apologies and makes up, the SL tears itself apart, or the GA is involved in a war of attrition with someone with 50 times the population and 200 times the manufacturing capability. I suspect the latter will not end well for the GA.

kzt wrote:There isn't enough time for anything. Bolthole is far enough from Haven that it takes a long time to reach. Haven take a long time to reach from Manticore. So they are going to drag the researchers and their families across the galaxy and set up shop. Think that happened in a week? Then they have no equipment (having it all blowed up real good) so the first order of things is to figure out what Haven is doing and is capable of and tell the Haven researchers all the deep secrets of RMN tech.

Yeah, that's not going to happen quickly. They have been in a hot at war for 18 years and a cold war for 20 before that and everyone involved is deeply indoctrinated into the need to keep secrets from exactly the people they need to talk to.

And if they do come up with something, they need to either figure out how to make it with the crappy tech Haven has or ship it to Beowulf and then get them involved.

This all takes a lot of time. And if the GA hasn't resolved their issues with the SL in some final fashion in a few years they are dead, as the SL will crush them in a long and serious war. So inside a year either everyone apologies and makes up, the SL tears itself apart, or the GA is involved in a war of attrition with someone with 50 times the population and 200 times the manufacturing capability. I suspect the latter will not end well for the GA.

I agree that all the spilled blood would prevent cooperation. But I think IMO that Sharon Foraker, Aubrey wanderman and Ginger Lewis will be key elements around whom to build the necessary team to «bump the hatefull scientists' heads» together...

Haven being in the alliance also means that the wormholes can be put in full use here.

My opinion is that by using Havenite technologie upgraded with the differents «leaks and tech manuals» they were abble to obtein, plus tech ships from Beowulf, Grayson, Star Empire plus allies, they could make a «push forward» move that would be beneficiary for the whole Alliance...

Given that RFC is planning on winding up the series in two more books, the last one to be issued in early 2018, I agree with KZT; there isn't time for anything major to come out of the hat.

Now, if the second series actually gets off the ground, we may see some interesting things.

Two things here:

Shannon Foraker is a genius at squeezing maximum performance out of existing systems. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she and people she's trained can get Alliance sensors to do things the designers never imagined they could, given some time to assess them properly. She'll also now be getting design-level advice on improving her own systems and software - which is probably still Haven's biggest weakness, 10 years won't have been enough to close that gap - to get better performance from her own hardware. Giving better models and algorithms to people who can already code perfectly well will do wonders for the many hardware elements in the Havenite tech base that aren't that far off the cutting edge.

The other thing is that Alliance hardware is still leagues ahead of Haven's in many areas, particularly gravitics and power systems. It's very likely that Bolthole has been able to develop and test things that they simply can't turn into deployable systems with their tech; Manty engineers can take that work and run with it, in some cases, much, much faster than might seem possible at first glance. They can probably also use Bolthole's existing kit to build a lot of the tools they need to put such things into production quickly.

What might come out of that, I won't even try to guess. I just think that there are avenues by which results can appear in plenty of time to matter.

JohnRoth wrote:Given that RFC is planning on winding up the series in two more books, the last one to be issued in early 2018, I agree with KZT; there isn't time for anything major to come out of the hat.

Now, if the second series actually gets off the ground, we may see some interesting things.

Louis R wrote:Two things here:

Shannon Foraker is a genius at squeezing maximum performance out of existing systems. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she and people she's trained can get Alliance sensors to do things the designers never imagined they could, given some time to assess them properly. She'll also now be getting design-level advice on improving her own systems and software - which is probably still Haven's biggest weakness, 10 years won't have been enough to close that gap - to get better performance from her own hardware. Giving better models and algorithms to people who can already code perfectly well will do wonders for the many hardware elements in the Havenite tech base that aren't that far off the cutting edge.

The other thing is that Alliance hardware is still leagues ahead of Haven's in many areas, particularly gravitics and power systems. It's very likely that Bolthole has been able to develop and test things that they simply can't turn into deployable systems with their tech; Manty engineers can take that work and run with it, in some cases, much, much faster than might seem possible at first glance. They can probably also use Bolthole's existing kit to build a lot of the tools they need to put such things into production quickly.

What might come out of that, I won't even try to guess. I just think that there are avenues by which results can appear in plenty of time to matter.

*points upward* What he said.

Also, you never know what sort of things a little pillow talk will kick up... and we all know who I expect to be sharing that pillow talk...

kzt wrote:There isn't enough time for anything. Bolthole is far enough from Haven that it takes a long time to reach. Haven take a long time to reach from Manticore. So they are going to drag the researchers and their families across the galaxy and set up shop. Think that happened in a week? Then they have no equipment (having it all blowed up real good) so the first order of things is to figure out what Haven is doing and is capable of and tell the Haven researchers all the deep secrets of RMN tech.

Yeah, that's not going to happen quickly. They have been in a hot at war for 18 years and a cold war for 20 before that and everyone involved is deeply indoctrinated into the need to keep secrets from exactly the people they need to talk to.

And if they do come up with something, they need to either figure out how to make it with the crappy tech Haven has or ship it to Beowulf and then get them involved.

This all takes a lot of time. And if the GA hasn't resolved their issues with the SL in some final fashion in a few years they are dead, as the SL will crush them in a long and serious war. So inside a year either everyone apologies and makes up, the SL tears itself apart, or the GA is involved in a war of attrition with someone with 50 times the population and 200 times the manufacturing capability. I suspect the latter will not end well for the GA.

Not sure that a lot of new tech has to come up in order to deal with SL... They have already lost a significant percent of their active fleet, however; it is important that Manticore rearm the Apollo systems and Haven ships are redeployed to cover the Manpower puppets.

Question is where to build a combined R&D center that is more secret than Bolthole. If I recall, not even Detweiler knew where it is but, I would not bet next weeks beer money on that.

When combined however, the talent is awesome including the defector who worked on the new ships that Manpower used I think one book to put the SL in its place and consolidate the Star Empire Alliance and one to deal with Detwiler and David can resolve this story line as he indicated he intends to.

I know that I am not alone in my respect for this work and in the enjoyment it has given. I first read On Basilisk Station the year it was released and have re read the entire series when each new book came out.

Can hardly wait for the next installment.

My thought? biggest thing out of Bolthole?

Trained personnel exchange: Haven has many hulls and hull building "employees" whose ships are the closest to RMN tech levels. So I expect something similar to Grayson's post HotQ development.

The deal would be something like this: we (Alliance) just lost our yards and top tech (which we can rebuild but too slowly) and no capacity in the mean time. You (Republic Navy) have yards and capacity and pretty good tech. We'll teach you to build top tech in exchange for capacity and "once we've taught them top tech, send a bunch of your better techs back to Manticore for a while to help us rebuild".

Perhaps a few ready to deploy Moriarty units in BC hulls can be fast forwarded from Bolthole through Trevor's Star for deployment in Beowulfan space. It's not like the SLN will be able to find those units when they come calling and imagine that battle if a bunch of BSDF minelayers just did a First Hancock/Solon with Moriarty nodes to an incoming SLN fleet. Mess up the Mandarin's plan more than a little, I'd think.

Meanwhile the brain trust is tasked to solve tasks for the next needs: Apollo style control below the wall. Long ranger CM interdiction abilities, economization of force requirements, etc. Hemphill on offensive weaponry, Foraker is mostly a defensive genius, Theisman/Tourville battle Tactics, and HAH/Hamish AH the department of sneaky battle nastiness. I also imagine they'd upgrade Bolthole's training simulators to ATC quality levels.

For example, we know that so far the GA has overdone the kill factor on the SLN SD's based on "havenite" level expectations. Maybe a "23-G" only requires a hundred missiles with additional lazing rods, etc. to mission kill an SD. Perhaps FAC style LACs designed as forward missile (CM or offensive) controllers?


Thoughts?

SharkHunter wrote:My thought? biggest thing out of Bolthole?

Trained personnel exchange: Haven has many hulls and hull building "employees" whose ships are the closest to RMN tech levels. So I expect something similar to Grayson's post HotQ development.

The deal would be something like this: we (Alliance) just lost our yards and top tech (which we can rebuild but too slowly) and no capacity in the mean time. You (Republic Navy) have yards and capacity and pretty good tech. We'll teach you to build top tech in exchange for capacity and "once we've taught them top tech, send a bunch of your better techs back to Manticore for a while to help us rebuild".

Perhaps a few ready to deploy Moriarty units in BC hulls can be fast forwarded from Bolthole through Trevor's Star for deployment in Beowulfan space. It's not like the SLN will be able to find those units when they come calling and imagine that battle if a bunch of BSDF minelayers just did a First Hancock/Solon with Moriarty nodes to an incoming SLN fleet. Mess up the Mandarin's plan more than a little, I'd think.

Meanwhile the brain trust is tasked to solve tasks for the next needs: Apollo style control below the wall. Long ranger CM interdiction abilities, economization of force requirements, etc. Hemphill on offensive weaponry, Foraker is mostly a defensive genius, Theisman/Tourville battle Tactics, and HAH/Hamish AH the department of sneaky battle nastiness. I also imagine they'd upgrade Bolthole's training simulators to ATC quality levels.

For example, we know that so far the GA has overdone the kill factor on the SLN SD's based on "havenite" level expectations. Maybe a "23-G" only requires a hundred missiles with additional lazing rods, etc. to mission kill an SD. Perhaps FAC style LACs designed as forward missile (CM or offensive) controllers?


Thoughts?

Elegant solution. I think that adding Apollo to the Moriarty units will stop the SLN in its tracks.

Someone has suggested that the nonotech that Manpower is using might cause a launch from the SLN but... the defenders could signal them with the results of the SLN's last adventures in Manticore system while they SLN is still out of the ability to reach either the planet or the mobile units and call on them to surrender while they are still out of their effective range. I know that the SLN could still launch and that the missiles would come in on ballistic path and be harder to pick up but... your idea could work.

The RMN has essentially been fighting the SL since its first war with Haven. The tech transfers to Haven gave the Manties, and Hemphill, ample time and experience to address everything the League has militarily. Plus, they were able to deal with them in onesies and twosies as Haven got the tech and "reversed engineered" them. In short, the Manties have been kicking the League's can as much as they have kicked Haven's. The League, meanwhile, will have to deal with everything the GA can throw at them at once in addition to getting new ships and systems designed, built, etc etc. Nevermind trying to keep itself together as a unified confederacy style nation. In the words of Liam Neeson "good luck."