Just for the Halibut... What of the RF post GA victory

Otherwise known as "something fishy in RF space", or "can't leave them damn carp lying in the galactic waters" Okay, bad puns, I know... Meanwhile as we await the next books...

Let's assume that RFC intends for the GA/Manticore to kick the every living s--- out of whatever forces the Mandarins muster up, and that both the SL and the MAlign go down in well deserved and preferably flaming glory. Or are eaten by treecats. (On second thought that would be cruel to treecats. Are fed to Hexapumas or peak bears?)

Who deals with the multi-generational enhanced super-folks who still exist, and how does the universe keep them from going all Scrag and Galactic Overlord on their neighbors?

I'm thinking.... the Star Empire of Beowulf.

And go... Thoughts, y'all?

SharkHunter wrote:Let's assume that RFC intends for the GA/Manticore to kick the every living s--- out of whatever forces the Mandarins muster up, and that both the SL and the MAlign go down in well deserved and preferably flaming glory.

I think that's probably a flawed assumption on the part of the MAlign. It's possible the Detweilers will be totally erased, but the MAlign is just too well distributed to be totally destroyed. Darius will remain and probably remain a secret.

SharkHunter wrote:Who deals with the multi-generational enhanced super-folks who still exist, and how does the universe keep them from going all Scrag and Galactic Overlord on their neighbors?

Raul Alexander Harrington and his treecat Yukon King along with his horde of siblings, aunt and uncle, and their associated armsmen. That's got to be the essential element of any follow-on mainline series -- and was the original plan, following Honor's death at the Battle of Manticore.

The Renaissance Factor is intended to gather in all of the former League members and become a true interstellar (totalitarian?) empire but events have worked out such that Manticore is going to be working on making every system independent and building a web of bilateral mutual defense treaties or a NATO-like mutual defense military collaboration.

At some point, the RF is going to run up against the lack of Chaos their universal domination plan is built around and will have to resort to the kinds of assassinations and covert corruption Haven indulged in pre-war.

The MAlign connection (with Darius) will be re-established and then exposed. Hilarity and Mayhem (tm) ensue.

snipping....

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Let's assume that RFC intends for the GA/Manticore to kick the every living s--- out of whatever forces the Mandarins muster up, and that both the SL and the MAlign go down in well deserved and preferably flaming glory. ... Who deals with the multi-generational enhanced super-folks who still exist, and how does the universe keep them from going all Scrag and Galactic Overlord on their neighbors?

Raul Alexander Harrington and his treecat Yukon King along with his horde of siblings, aunt and uncle, and their associated armsmen. That's got to be the essential element of any follow-on mainline series -- and was the original plan, following Honor's death at the Battle of Manticore....

I like it. Maybe add either "treecat size pulsers" or teach the 'cats to use poison blowdarts on toxic RF'ers... "Here interesting looking kitty kitty kitty..., and pffft, bad guy dead on the ground.

Weird Harold wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Let's assume that RFC intends for the GA/Manticore to kick the every living s--- out of whatever forces the Mandarins muster up, and that both the SL and the MAlign go down in well deserved and preferably flaming glory.

I think that's probably a flawed assumption on the part of the MAlign. It's possible the Detweilers will be totally erased, but the MAlign is just too well distributed to be totally destroyed. Darius will remain and probably remain a secret.

SharkHunter wrote:Who deals with the multi-generational enhanced super-folks who still exist, and how does the universe keep them from going all Scrag and Galactic Overlord on their neighbors?

Raul Alexander Harrington and his treecat Yukon King along with his horde of siblings, aunt and uncle, and their associated armsmen. That's got to be the essential element of any follow-on mainline series -- and was the original plan, following Honor's death at the Battle of Manticore.

The Renaissance Factor is intended to gather in all of the former League members and become a true interstellar (totalitarian?) empire but events have worked out such that Manticore is going to be working on making every system independent and building a web of bilateral mutual defense treaties or a NATO-like mutual defense military collaboration.

At some point, the RF is going to run up against the lack of Chaos their universal domination plan is built around and will have to resort to the kinds of assassinations and covert corruption Haven indulged in pre-war.

The MAlign connection (with Darius) will be re-established and then exposed. Hilarity and Mayhem (tm) ensue.

Victor Catchet & Anton Zilwiki know that the malign has left Mesa. The GA will be actively searching for them, so I think that we can take as a given that darius and the detweilers will be found. The detweilers and several others (like anismovna) will either be dead or in jail for the rest of their life.

IMO without a central mastermind, the RF and mesan supermen are not likely to become a threat to the galaxy again. An annoyance like the skraggs, yes, but not a threat.

I suppose that it is possible that one of the RF leaders can pull together another conspiracy, but IMO it is not likely to become a galactic threat for several hundred years.

From things he has said I believe that RFC has no interest in writing a followup series, so it is IMO probable that the RF will be discovered and neutralized.

If he does want to do a new series, then IMO it is more likely to consist of honors grandchildren and great grand kids rather than her kids.

Or ... or ... OR!, is it possible Runs For Celery understands the reality of his future history situation and within about 5 years or 2 or 3 more good juicy Honor Harrington novels, the Sollies will get their act together and simply overwhelm and completely destroy the Grand Alliance?

Do not forget the Mesan Malightment. Sneaky devils. Scary tech. Will they share?

Or respectfully ... why is it so many intelligent individuals on this excellent forum fail to understand Sollie system numbers? Or industrial potential? Or political resolve? Mark 24 monkey copies? Future copied numbers? 100,000 new Sollie ships from 10,000 new yards?

Again. How many industrialized Sollie and Verge planets? Now many industrialized Grand Alliance planets?

I think Mr. Weber will fool lots of people here. Honor is in for the ride of her life and it is not going to be a painless or short lesson. Ouch, yikes, oh my Gawd! Where DID all of those new construction new design Sollie starships come from? And armed with ... WTF? Yikes! We will see. Respectfully.

Not sure this is the right topic, but here goes:

Just reread Cauldron of Ghosts and noted the following "breadcrumbs":

(a) Albrecht specifically notes Nesbitt at Haven, Darius, and the Renaissance Factor as things the GA hasn't figured out yet.

(b) Treecats are now being assigned specifically to sniff out Alignment personnel, starting with Uncle Jacques.

(c) Torch is now allying with Beowulf for war on Manpower outposts. In the course of one such raid, several "inner circle" Alignment personnel are killed off in circumstances that raise the suspicions of both Torch and Beowulf. At the same time, two other passengers escape but kill their "minder", one of whom has every reason to begin to question his loyalty to the inner circle, just as his brother did. Moreover, he is apparently the only person left in his apparently important research project, giving the MA an incentive not to off him. He may or may not be in position to leave a breadcrumb trail to Darius.

(c) The discovery of a new connection near Torch and the strange disappearance of the probe sent through it (we know it was shot down) is still not on the minds of Manticore. However, the dissemination of the news about the Alignment throughout Manticore, covered in CoG, may give the scientist involved a reason to raise his suspicions with the powers that be.

(d) The upcoming book is apparently about revolutions aimed at making the Manticorans seem unable to respond to calls for help, thereby indirectly helping the RF. It makes me wonder if one of the "fire alarms" will be from the RF itself, thereby accidentally revealing that part of the Alignment's master plan.

(e) Since Cachat has a good sense of the Aligment's "bug-out", Henke has a treecat, and the Alignment has to leave some folks behind to keep things elsewhere operating, chances are good that they will be able to come up with at least some of the initial destination points and personnel for the "bug-out."

I would also pose a naive question: since the result of this war is likely to be a loose "federation" of polities, whose wars if any are likely to be of less interest, why wouldn't the Great Author have planned a next-generation story arc of meeting and fighting aliens?

C

Luckily for the MA the trigger happy torchie killed everyone and destroyed all the evidence that would have helped figure out what was going on, leaving only questions. Too bad, so sad. There is a reason why you shouldn't put your most ruthless, reactive and gung-ho people in charge.

HB of CJ wrote:Or respectfully ... why is it so many intelligent individuals on this excellent forum fail to understand Sollie system numbers? Or industrial potential? Or political resolve? Mark 24 monkey copies? Future copied numbers? 100,000 new Sollie ships from 10,000 new yards?

With respect, I wouldn't characterize it as people here 'failing to understand' anything - we understand perfectly well what you're saying, we just think your arguments are wrong.

Not going to rehash all of the arguments again, but the main point is that you seem to be thinking the Solarian league as a coherent entity will continue to exist long enough for that (undeniable) numerical and industrial superiority to actually come into play, while the rest of us keep telling you that that's not what's going to happen. The entire point of the GA plan is to take advantage of the incredibly weak cohesion of the solarian league - the pre-existing fault lines and lack of loyalty towards the central government that Weber has already told us exist - to fragment the league into pieces too small to threaten the GA before they can gear up to crush anybody. Right now the sollies have all the numbers and industrial potential in the world, but insufficient warfighting technology to fight the GA, and by the time they have the warfighting technology, they won't have the numbers or industrial potential anymore.

In rejecting the obvious for the desirable and climbing on board a popular bandwagon just because ... well just because ... well just because IT FEELS SO GOOD to be all playing the same tune ... even when it is dead dead wrong, seems to litter the wayside with the hard facts of numbers, potential and the naggy reminders of world history.

... Oh gosh. The Mother of all run on sentences!!! Augghhhhh! My bad! I'm sorry. Can I have a cookie please?

Just hand waving will not make something true or concrete only because the hand waving feels so good. Or in this case feeling good about existing storyline. Ignoring the hard facts regarding the INDUSTRIAL POTENTIAL of the Sollie core and verge systems will be done at many reader's peril. We will see what Mr. Weber does with this.

Sounds like to me that lots of folks here want just to rearrange the sliding deck chairs of the Titanic and sing hymnals along with the ship's string quartet when instead it might be a very good idea to instead start shoving and pushing real hard looking for that very first available empty lifeboat .... right now!

OH GAWD!!! Did it again. Opps!!

wkernochan wrote:Not sure this is the right topic, but here goes:

Just reread Cauldron of Ghosts and noted the following "breadcrumbs":

(a) Albrecht specifically notes Nesbitt at Haven, Darius, and the Renaissance Factor as things the GA hasn't figured out yet.

(b) Treecats are now being assigned specifically to sniff out Alignment personnel, starting with Uncle Jacques.

(c) Torch is now allying with Beowulf for war on Manpower outposts. In the course of one such raid, several "inner circle" Alignment personnel are killed off in circumstances that raise the suspicions of both Torch and Beowulf. At the same time, two other passengers escape but kill their "minder", one of whom has every reason to begin to question his loyalty to the inner circle, just as his brother did. Moreover, he is apparently the only person left in his apparently important research project, giving the MA an incentive not to off him. He may or may not be in position to leave a breadcrumb trail to Darius.

Zack McBryde and his companion have been discussed a bit. Whether or not RFC will connect up that thread remains to be seen.

wkernochan wrote:(c) The discovery of a new connection near Torch and the strange disappearance of the probe sent through it (we know it was shot down) is still not on the minds of Manticore. However, the dissemination of the news about the Alignment throughout Manticore, covered in CoG, may give the scientist involved a reason to raise his suspicions with the powers that be.

This horse has been flogged until the poor equine is staggering around, dazed. It doesn't matter if the reason the Harvest Joy didn't come back is enemy action or that the Torch wormhole is a ship-eating monster, putting another ship through it will just lose the ship. They're going to have to figure out what's going on from the other end, and so far they don't have a clue.

wkernochan wrote:(d) The upcoming book is apparently about revolutions aimed at making the Manticorans seem unable to respond to calls for help, thereby indirectly helping the RF. It makes me wonder if one of the "fire alarms" will be from the RF itself, thereby accidentally revealing that part of the Alignment's master plan.

Well, that's one of the plot lines. There are almost certainly others.

wkernochan wrote:(e) Since Cachat has a good sense of the Aligment's "bug-out", Henke has a treecat, and the Alignment has to leave some folks behind to keep things elsewhere operating, chances are good that they will be able to come up with at least some of the initial destination points and personnel for the "bug-out."

Nope, the entire point of Houdini was to make sure there were absolutely no people left on Mesa to be discovered and interrogated.

wkernochan wrote:I would also pose a naive question: since the result of this war is likely to be a loose "federation" of polities, whose wars if any are likely to be of less interest, why wouldn't the Great Author have planned a next-generation story arc of meeting and fighting aliens?

He's said that he has no particular interest in alien empires in the Honorverse, at least ones that are capable of threatening human hemogeny.