Fortress Command

ChronicRder wrote:Interstellar law recognizes the immediate space around the terminus as the territory of the star nation which controls the Junction. This is the case practically everywhere except the Visigoth Junction where Mesa sniped the survey ship. With Manticore building all those forts at all those other Termini, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't build some in the Sigma Draconis/Beowulf Terminus. That would not have really impacted the agreement that the two nations shared where the Junction Control would be manned by Beowulfan personnel. The burden of defense still falls on Manticore and the RMN.

Um, no. With one notable (but generally unknown) exception, termini are outside of the 12 light-minute from the hyper limit boundary which interstellar law regards as belonging to the system government. Many, but not all of them are within the 6 light-hour radius which interstellar law recognizes belongs to the system government if it has the military power to defend it. Manticore has control of the Manticore Junction's termini because of treaties it's made with the relevant star nations.

I don't remember anything about Mesa capturing the survey ship from the Visigoth junction. Textev, please.

JohnRoth wrote:

ChronicRder wrote:Interstellar law recognizes the immediate space around the terminus as the territory of the star nation which controls the Junction. This is the case practically everywhere except the Visigoth Junction where Mesa sniped the survey ship. With Manticore building all those forts at all those other Termini, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't build some in the Sigma Draconis/Beowulf Terminus. That would not have really impacted the agreement that the two nations shared where the Junction Control would be manned by Beowulfan personnel. The burden of defense still falls on Manticore and the RMN.

Um, no. With one notable (but generally unknown) exception, termini are outside of the 12 light-minute from the hyper limit boundary which interstellar law regards as belonging to the system government. Many, but not all of them are within the 6 light-hour radius which interstellar law recognizes belongs to the system government if it has the military power to defend it. Manticore has control of the Manticore Junction's termini because of treaties it's made with the relevant star nations.

I don't remember anything about Mesa capturing the survey ship from the Visigoth junction. Textev, please.

1: Do you really think Beowulf could defend the termini if it were attacked? Esp with how good the RMN is at mass translations?

2: There is no evidence...because they weren't captured. They were vaporized by a squadron of MALign battlecruisers seconds after they popped out the termini. I believe that was either late in 2nd book of the Torch novels or early on in the third. It's been a while since I read them, sorry.

ChronicRder wrote:Manticore's not shy about giving the League the finger when it has to. When it can get away well enough without doing so - without compromising sovereignty or safety - it would. Someone shooting up the Beowulf terminus' infrastructure is making an enemy of Beowulf and the League and can be left to them to handle, or at least, left to them to deter.

Still, we've never really seen anyone launch actually execute a Junction assault. Textev shows that White Haven launched the Battle of Trevor's Star by attacking through the Junction and that "it was very costly." It doesn't really go into the battle itself.

And that was with coordination such that Trevor's Star defenders were drawn off by the other pincer. I doubt what remained there were full-up fortresses, as opposed to small and/or old fortresses, few in number, or just warships with mines/pods.

Manticore seems to have to give them the finger a lot.

Back to the Battle of TS, he leaves it to the reader to assume which force took the most casualties. Then, that was a nice literally device to leave his options open. Now, it's becoming more and more important to see what sort of tactics the RMN has in that regard, other than the deus ex machina that they've used twice--both at Basilisk. To you Starcraft players on this forum, Mass Recall for the win!

IIRC, MWW explained(not in the books) that White Haven attacked Trevor's Star conventionally, using Sixth Fleet to threaten the planet. This forced the mobile Peep forces to abandon the terminus.

A scout ship was scheduled to jump through from Manticore, turn around and jump back. This indicates the PRH never bothered to fortify their side of the bridge, or that scout would never have been able to return and give the green light for Home Fleet's battle squadrons to come through.

Admiral Girardi's force was then caught between two powerful enemy formations. He was forced to retreat, even thought he would later be shot for losing the battle. The Peeps probably engaged one of the Manticoran fleets as they retreated.

Later textev indicates that White Haven knew he pushed his ships too hard to capture Trevor's Star, with many of them sent to the yards with a combination of battle damage and equipment fatigue.

ChronicRder wrote:2: There is no evidence...because they weren't captured. They were vaporized by a squadron of MALign battlecruisers seconds after they popped out the termini. I believe that was either late in 2nd book of the Torch novels or early on in the third. It's been a while since I read them, sorry.

That wasn't the Visigoth junction, it was The Twins end of the Torch bridge which the MAlign has been keeping secret and has no connection to Visigoth. The Visigoth junction is public knowledge and open for general use, and IIRC has been known about since before the colonization of Mesa

Not all Manticore terminus are fortified.

The Gregor terminus isn't, because it is inside the Andy empire. Not sure it was fortified before the Andies, since Gregor was independent in HoS (1867).

Anyhow, look at: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/108/0

kzt wrote:Not all Manticore terminus are fortified.

The Gregor terminus isn't, because it is inside the Andy empire. Not sure it was fortified before the Andies, since Gregor was independent in HoS (1867).

Anyhow, look at: http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/108/0

Most of them are not fortified except for local picket forces.

Matapan, Terra Haute, and Gregore are defended by Cruiser-Destroyer units.

[quote="saber964"
Most of them are not fortified except for local picket forces.

Matapan, Terra Haute, and Gregore are defended by Cruiser-Destroyer units.[/quote]
Not exactly.

"the Matapan Terminus has the lowest traffic volume of any of the Junction's termini, the terminus itself is covered by a handful of fairly light forts and a picket of second or third-line cruisers and destroyers."

"While there's substantial merchant traffic through the Hennessy Terminus, there's not much military threat in the area. Manticore covers the actual terminus with forts and maintains a cruiser-level/destroyer-level picket primarily for local traffic control and to discourage piracy."

Gregor was also covered doubly by the same deal Manticore had with Beowulf, about forces covering the Gregor Terminus.

the Andermani Empire later annexed Gregor-B, while the Terminus itself is around Gregor-A.

When the Andermani Empire annexed the Gregor-B system around 1869 PD, it recognized the preexisting treaty that the former Gregor Republic had with the Star Kingdom of Manticore, which gave title of the terminus itself to the SKM, as well as gave the Royal Manticoran Navy the right to maintain a fleet base and navy picket orbiting Gregor A as well as a system of forts guarding the terminus itself, under the control of Gregor Defense Command. The Empire gained sovereignty over the rest of the system. (HH6, HH10)

Now the SKM seemed to keep a minimal tasked picket, in exchange for seemingly allowed the IAN to handle the heavy picket, much like Manticore took a hands off with Beowulf. It may have just been the rising tensions with the Hhigh Ridge government, but the IAN did have at least one superdreadnought squadron in Gregor-B when Honor passed through with her AMC squadron.

And since Beowulf has no less than 36 superdreadnoughts, most of which are for guarding Beowulf, and the Terminus there, it's very possible the IAN also stationed a similar force level in their half of the binary Gregor system. Sort of how Manticore has two different 'squadrons' tasked with guarding the home system. On the Manticore/Terminus Gregor-A, cruiser and destroyer-level picket, and on the Andermani Gregor-B you have the wallers, battlecruisers, and screen.

If any hostiles went for the Terminus, a short hyper jump would be whistling up the battle squadrons from Gregor-B, and a second ship darting through the wormhole would be whistling up a detachment from Manticore... can't quite see even Monica being convinced to attempting that situation.

Now obviously, Andermani forces don't have to react to hostiles attacking the Gregor Terminus, however it is definitely in their interests, lest Manticore decide to raise taxes on Andermani-flagged vessels in retaliation. So it's very probable, that excluding the events in HH5, the IAN treated the Gregor Terminus as "a part of the empire, any call for help will be responded to appropiately".

Manticore's not shy about giving the League the finger when it has to. When it can get away well enough without doing so - without compromising sovereignty or safety - it would. Someone shooting up the Beowulf terminus' infrastructure is making an enemy of Beowulf and the League and can be left to them to handle, or at least, left to them to deter.

Manticore seems to have to give them the finger a lot.

Well, the League is kinda dense. It takes a lot of finger to get through to them sometimes. It's especially bad when Alignment stooges are making bad decisions way out yonder too fast for Old Chicago to rein them in while avoiding loss of face.

JeffEngel wrote:

Manticore seems to have to give them the finger a lot.

Well, the League is kinda dense. It takes a lot of finger to get through to them sometimes. It's especially bad when Alignment stooges are making bad decisions way out yonder too fast for Old Chicago to rein them in while avoiding loss of face.

It's not even just Alignment stooges, some of them are just the stereotypical Solly who's arrogant (and dumb enough) to think if he acts decisively he can stop Manticore cold.

And their 'advisors' aren't always Alignment operatives either, just generic dumb OFS officers, and Sector Governor's who think they can perform better than SLN. Because only monkey's enlist, real people with brains go into politics where they can command the monkeys.... right?


Except for the Mandarins, just about all Solly officials hold little to no respect for their Navy, except when it's time to club some poor dumb neo-barb.