How would you attack the SL

kzt wrote:

darrell wrote:the other half for your primary objective of searching for darius. Than as more and more worlds leave the SL, a higher and higher percentage of your fleet can be diverted to the darius search. Your search for darius will actually be faster than doing it your way.

Exactly how do you plan on doing this? Space is vast and they have even less of a clue as to where the theorized Mesa secret planet is than they did bolthole. Which they STILL haven't found despite years of searching.

I agree, they're not going to find Darius by searching for it. They'll find Darius either by a lot of dogged intelligence work, correlating what they can find of the MAlign's C&C loop, or they'll have another "lucky break" with someone who knows a critical piece of evidence that they don't know is important.

JohnRoth wrote:

munroburton wrote:Closer to later, really. Any Verge sector capital is probably approximately three months' hyperspace travel from Sol by dispatch boat.

If, as at Meyers, the GA force prevents any SLN vessels or couriers from leaving, that three month window increases to whenever a merchant wanders in and out. Since Meyers doesn't appear to trade directly with Sol, the news will filter much more slowly as long as the wormholes remain closed to Solarian traffic.

At some point, Manticore's ambassador will mention that the entire Verge has been liberated. And there'll be nothing the Mandarins can do about it by then.

As far as Meyers is concerned, they'll find out about it approximately a week and a half after Admiral Gold Peak takes Mesa. She's almost certainly going to use her little fact-finding mission to Meyers as justification for showing up at Mesa, and that news will head for Earth as fast as they can crank up the drives on dispatch boats.

Those dispatch boats will also carry the news that the Mesa end of the Visigoth-Mesa hyper bridge is closed to Solarian-flagged traffic.

That may not completely close off the sector. According to the Illegible Map, there are two other hyper bridges into that general area.

I don't disagree that such information could reach them faster, but Gold Peak certainly doesn't have to announce what she's been doing straightaway. At the very least, she needs to wait for her Government to approve or repudiate her actions.

marcus wrote:So for this thread You are Honor 10 million plus Beowulf n’s have died from a SLN attack you are not allowed for political reasons to attack earth how do you bring down The SLN and Mandarins

I suggest that the response is blatantly political. Organise a 'grand tour' (20 SDPs, escorts, and a large number of ammo colliers) visiting those star nations that voted against Beowulf.

Upon arrival, they announce "This is a punitive punishment for supporting the Mandarin's attack on Beowulf. You have 24 hours to evacuate your orbital facilities. Whether evacuated or not, we will then destroy those facilities in response for your support of the Mandarins' murder of millions of Beowulf citizens."

Once three or four nations have been hit, the advantages of leaving the SLN will appear obvious.

I think there's several differing priorities.

One of which is to eat at the will and unity of the SL. Breaking the SLN is part of that. To do that, we need two general offensive plans. First is against Frontier Fleet. Like others pointed out, Gold Peak is already doing that. Lots of the Verge planets would like independence and gutting the ability of Frontier Fleet from providing support enables this. The MAlignment's fake support for rebels is quickly helping this turn into a real thing.

Frontier Fleet has two other ways of being taken out (both depending on Battle Fleet not being a factor). One is variations on Maya Sector, where the Sector Governor or others (mega corp managers, generals, Frontier Fleet Admirals, etc) sees independence from the SL as a wonderful goal. They're able to talk enough local units to their side to win. Maya Sector is effectively there, but this depends on the SLN not being able to quickly respond. If Battle Fleet is unable to venture out and stomp on them, their small fleets will be enough to win independence.

The second way for sectors to go out is for another hostile polity to see the SL is weak and jump on them as a jackal. Imagine a less enlightened Andermani Empire in a sector opposite the Haven Sector. Maybe they are at a point closer to the Peeps during the early days of the war, but still have a few dozen wallers. If the SL is effectively on local control in the Verge, snapping up planets on the edges will be very attractive.

For those to work, and cause the collapse of the league to accelerate, we need the Battle Fleet to be a non issue.

Its rapidly proving one, as between the offensives Battle Fleet has lost every time. Additional targeting of Battle Fleet bases is a clear military target. It might be better with diplomatic out reach to the core worlds the bases are on/near. Same for the few true SD makers. The SL has a small line of SD production, and those trained yards are valuable both for their people and their tools. Showing up, demanding its surrender, letting the people go and blowing up their facilities may be workable without causing a rallying incident.

I still think sending a fleet to Earth to blow up the SLN HQ is worth it in the military end of making Battle Fleet gone. But its too likely to be a rallying point to make it worth it.

JohnRoth wrote:I agree, they're not going to find Darius by searching for it. They'll find Darius either by a lot of dogged intelligence work, correlating what they can find of the MAlign's C&C loop, or they'll have another "lucky break" with someone who knows a critical piece of evidence that they don't know is important.

Houdini is just too much too quick. Re-reading 'Cauldron of Ghosts' makes it clear there's a bunch of evidence for it off Mesa. Especially in the transfers of Houdini evacs via Manpower transportation.

Zack McBryde is already a captive, and he was naval R&D. Whether or not he can give the exact location of Darius is a question, but he almost certainly knows the name, and may even know the Wormhole details.

feyhunde wrote:I think there's several differing priorities.

One of which is to eat at the will and unity of the SL. Breaking the SLN is part of that. To do that, we need two general offensive plans. First is against Frontier Fleet. Like others pointed out, Gold Peak is already doing that. Lots of the Verge planets would like independence and gutting the ability of Frontier Fleet from providing support enables this. The MAlignment's fake support for rebels is quickly helping this turn into a real thing.

Frontier Fleet has two other ways of being taken out (both depending on Battle Fleet not being a factor). One is variations on Maya Sector, where the Sector Governor or others (mega corp managers, generals, Frontier Fleet Admirals, etc) sees independence from the SL as a wonderful goal. They're able to talk enough local units to their side to win. Maya Sector is effectively there, but this depends on the SLN not being able to quickly respond. If Battle Fleet is unable to venture out and stomp on them, their small fleets will be enough to win independence.

The second way for sectors to go out is for another hostile polity to see the SL is weak and jump on them as a jackal. Imagine a less enlightened Andermani Empire in a sector opposite the Haven Sector. Maybe they are at a point closer to the Peeps during the early days of the war, but still have a few dozen wallers. If the SL is effectively on local control in the Verge, snapping up planets on the edges will be very attractive.

For those to work, and cause the collapse of the league to accelerate, we need the Battle Fleet to be a non issue.

Its rapidly proving one, as between the offensives Battle Fleet has lost every time. Additional targeting of Battle Fleet bases is a clear military target. It might be better with diplomatic out reach to the core worlds the bases are on/near. Same for the few true SD makers. The SL has a small line of SD production, and those trained yards are valuable both for their people and their tools. Showing up, demanding its surrender, letting the people go and blowing up their facilities may be workable without causing a rallying incident.

I still think sending a fleet to Earth to blow up the SLN HQ is worth it in the military end of making Battle Fleet gone. But its too likely to be a rallying point to make it worth it.

Addressing the part I bolded. David has said that we've already seen all the major multi-stellar polities* (Haven, the Andermani, Silesia before the partition, and Manticore with the annexation of the Talbott sector and the partition of Silesia) outside of the Solarian League.

* Major multi-stellar polities meaning a polity that controls more than just a few star system. This excludes individual system governments in the Solarian League (they are part of the Solarian League), even though a few of them have a wall of battle as part of their system defense forces.

feyhunde wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:I agree, they're not going to find Darius by searching for it. They'll find Darius either by a lot of dogged intelligence work, correlating what they can find of the MAlign's C&C loop, or they'll have another "lucky break" with someone who knows a critical piece of evidence that they don't know is important.

Houdini is just too much too quick. Re-reading 'Cauldron of Ghosts' makes it clear there's a bunch of evidence for it off Mesa. Especially in the transfers of Houdini evacs via Manpower transportation.

Zack McBryde is already a captive, and he was naval R&D. Whether or not he can give the exact location of Darius is a question, but he almost certainly knows the name, and may even know the Wormhole details.

Zachariah McBryde is not a captive. He was last seen on on his way to Darius with Gail Weiss aboard the Prince Sundjata (the current leg of his journey). He may or may not make it there, but that isn't covered in:

Cauldron of Ghosts, Chapter 46 wrote:It was perfectly obvious to Zachariah that Captain Bogunov didn’t believe much of their story. But it was just as obvious that she had no intention of trying to ferret out the truth herself.
Let the authorities—whoever the hell they might be—sort this out for themselves. The same authorities who had stressed to her that she should ask no questions of the passengers and let Zhilov do pretty much whatever he had a mind to do.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to put you in confinement for the rest of the trip, though,” she said apologetically. “Pick whichever of your cabins you want. It’ll be a little crowded but . . . that’s the way it is. I haven’t got the personnel to keep a guard on more than one cabin.”

They settled in Gail’s cabin, which she’d shared with Juarez, since it had two bunks.
After Zachariah stowed away his few possessions, he sat across from Gail at the little extruding shelf that served the cabin as a pitiful excuse for a dining table.
“Did you leave everyone behind?” she asked him.
“Yes. Lisa was the only friend I had left, and . . .”
She nodded. “I guess I was lucky. My husband and I divorced a year ago and we had no kids. And my parents are both dead. I have a brother but we’ve never been close. You?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Zach began talking about his family. He was still doing so two hours later, as the ship vanished into the universe. By then, they were holding hands.

.

wyrm wrote:

marcus wrote:So for this thread You are Honor 10 million plus Beowulf n’s have died from a SLN attack you are not allowed for political reasons to attack earth how do you bring down The SLN and Mandarins

I suggest that the response is blatantly political. Organise a 'grand tour' (20 SDPs, escorts, and a large number of ammo colliers) visiting those star nations that voted against Beowulf.

Upon arrival, they announce "This is a punitive punishment for supporting the Mandarin's attack on Beowulf. You have 24 hours to evacuate your orbital facilities. Whether evacuated or not, we will then destroy those facilities in response for your support of the Mandarins' murder of millions of Beowulf citizens."

Once three or four nations have been hit, the advantages of leaving the SLN will appear obvious.

I'd advocate doing half of this. And only to the biggest, most politically powerful/influential core worlds, because the League is huge.

Stroll in with either massively overwhelming force in the form of a wall, or use smaller forces to demonstrate that the RMN doesn't need wallers to come visit whenever it wants.
Order the immediate evacuation of everything, military and civilian, then stroll into planetary orbit after the evacuation deadline and point out that at this point in time the RMN could destroy all space-based infrastructure in the system, and nothing would have been able to stop them - that the RMN could, in fact, demand the planet's surrender. The RMN, however, is not the League, and so will not only not demand the planet surrender, it won't destroy all space infrastructure, and will then leave the planet and system to reconsider whether or not they desire to remain part of the League that declared war upon Manticore and attacked Beowulf.
Demonstrate that the RMN could flatten all space-based infrastructure anytime it wanted, but chose not to. This makes fewer enemies, turns up the pressure on the League and the SLN to provide protection for its members, and gives systems reasons to think about leaving the League.
Do this for a while, then go for places that the SLN is
"protecting" - demonstrate that the League's protection is not enough to actually protect anyone, and give them a chance to consider leaving the League as well.



Frankly, this is more of a Cutworm or Sanskrit style operation, without the actual flattening of space-based infrastructure.

Kytheros wrote:Frankly, this is more of a Cutworm or Sanskrit style operation, without the actual flattening of space-based infrastructure.

This is exactly why this question is hard to answer, since that kind of political intelligence is thin on the ground in the books.

It is certain that you don't want to target the systems nominally aligned with Beowulf who are considering seceding.

About the only worthwhile targets I can think of are hard yards, especially ones capable of building capital ships. Other yards would be nice and put additional pressure on the League, but the capital ship yards would be the real prize. That would emphasize how utterly outclassed the SLN was, while eliminating the infrastructure required for the SLN to build units that can actually fight and aren't just overmanned targets. It seems that a squadron or two of BC(P)s, plus a division of destroyers as a screen, would be sufficient for most such raids. And that's what Battlecruisers are for.

I think that going after the Reserve is a bad idea. As several others have pointed out, the existence of the Reserve is going to greatly slow down the SLN's ability to develop and deploy effective combatants. Another point is that each raid runs the risk of giving the League and the SLN another look at the GA's capabilities. While a LAC raid on Reserve SDs sounds awesome and would make a great read, it seems that the SLN and the League are as clueless about changes in LACs in the Haven Sector as they were about missiles. It would be a shame for them to discover that too soon.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:

Kytheros wrote:Frankly, this is more of a Cutworm or Sanskrit style operation, without the actual flattening of space-based infrastructure.

This is exactly why this question is hard to answer, since that kind of political intelligence is thin on the ground in the books.

It is certain that you don't want to target the systems nominally aligned with Beowulf who are considering seceding.

About the only worthwhile targets I can think of are hard yards, especially ones capable of building capital ships. Other yards would be nice and put additional pressure on the League, but the capital ship yards would be the real prize. That would emphasize how utterly outclassed the SLN was, while eliminating the infrastructure required for the SLN to build units that can actually fight and aren't just overmanned targets. It seems that a squadron or two of BC(P)s, plus a division of destroyers as a screen, would be sufficient for most such raids. And that's what Battlecruisers are for.

I think that going after the Reserve is a bad idea. As several others have pointed out, the existence of the Reserve is going to greatly slow down the SLN's ability to develop and deploy effective combatants. Another point is that each raid runs the risk of giving the League and the SLN another look at the GA's capabilities. While a LAC raid on Reserve SDs sounds awesome and would make a great read, it seems that the SLN and the League are as clueless about changes in LACs in the Haven Sector as they were about missiles. It would be a shame for them to discover that too soon.

Actually, I'm advocating not destroying any infrastructure whatsoever, at least for the initial series of these operations. I'm advocating going in and making the point that the RMN could have completely destroyed all space-based infrastructure, and finished long before the SLN could have responded - and chose not to.
What systems to target like this? Use a similar profile as for deciding the targets for the Cutworm and Sanskrit raids - politically powerful and/or influential systems that aren't sufficiently defended to stop whatever level of force is being assigned. Excepting those systems aligned with Beowulf and those considering secession already.
We, as readers, don't have the information to put names to those systems that meet the requirements, but characters in-universe most assuredly do have that information, either already in their heads or available to research in their Intelligence files.


Actually taking out the infrastructure turns that system into a committed enemy, even after the war is over. Demonstrating that the GA could have taken out the infrastructure but chose not to, doesn't do that, and makes that system want to be better defended, and to not be the GA's enemy during this war. At the moment, however, staying in the League means quicker defensive improvements, but remaining the GA's enemy, and remaining on the target list for when the GA actually starts taking out system's infrastructure. Leaving the League means they need to defend themselves or work with their neighbors to jointly defend each other, and they get to not be the GA's enemy now, and off future GA target lists. Leaving the League and either going solo or joining with neighbors is the GA's way to beat the League.