How would you attack the SL

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.

JohnRoth wrote: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.

munroburton wrote: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.

Actually, she does. It's the evidence she found on Meyers that backs up her claim that Mesa has committed an Act of War against Manticore, which is her justification for invading Mesa. And the dispatch boats I mentioned aren't hers; they belong to the various Solarian news organizations that are going to want to get that scoop back home as fast as possible.

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.

Vince is correct. The person they've got is Herlander Simoes, who is one of the MAlign's top hyperphysicists. The likelihood that he doesn't know about The Twins is essentially zero. He's also quite likely to know about both the Torch wormhole and the Felix junction, which are the other ends of the two termini at The Twins. He is not likely to know where the other termini of the Felix junction lead, although he might.

Now whether he knows where they are in any useful sense, like having the Galactic Atlas numbers, is an open question. (The number for The Twins is SGC-902-36-G). He's also not all that likely to know that the information would be interesting to the GA; remember that he's a colossal tech nerd who's undoubtedly never heard of Torch.

The fact that Zack McBryde is Naval R&D almost certainly means he knows about Darius in a general sense. It doesn't mean that he knows anything useful about where it is or how to get there, even though it's quite possible that he's been there.

Whatever Herlander knows, and I agree that he knows _something_, even if only shop talk, Zack knows exactly what that wormhole network is all about. Given what he said to Jack about the military implications being worked out it's likely that he even knows the locations of the nexus and some of the terminals. He _may_ not know that Darius is one of them, but would probably be aware that it has 'easy access' to one. OTOH, he probably knows very little about Darius itself, and may _not_ know much about what's in the building slips there. That's operational info that he may not have needed.

The fun thing is that even if he knows where Darius is, he may not be able to get there, assuming he still wants to. It's not as if he can buy a ticket to Mannerheim and claim aid and comfort from President Herskainen, after all.

JohnRoth wrote:

feyhunde wrote:
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.

Vince is correct. The person they've got is Herlander Simoes, who is one of the MAlign's top hyperphysicists. The likelihood that he doesn't know about The Twins is essentially zero. He's also quite likely to know about both the Torch wormhole and the Felix junction, which are the other ends of the two termini at The Twins. He is not likely to know where the other termini of the Felix junction lead, although he might.

Now whether he knows where they are in any useful sense, like having the Galactic Atlas numbers, is an open question. (The number for The Twins is SGC-902-36-G). He's also not all that likely to know that the information would be interesting to the GA; remember that he's a colossal tech nerd who's undoubtedly never heard of Torch.

The fact that Zack McBryde is Naval R&D almost certainly means he knows about Darius in a general sense. It doesn't mean that he knows anything useful about where it is or how to get there, even though it's quite possible that he's been there.

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.

I'll argue for hitting the reserve and the hard yards because it helps the Verge get set on fire. Battle Fleet showing up is what makes fighting the SLN unthinkable for most. If Battle Fleet is a non issue in the medium run, it lets places like Maya Sector bet they can make a go of it. Other OFS sectors may have similar goals, although lack the sophistication of Maya's plans.

Heck cutting down Battle Fleet means bringing in Frontier Fleet units to the core worlds, further reducing OFS. I'd even wonder if Frontier Fleet units reduced to being gods of creation will behave in the Core or the Shell. Not to mention that Core World's screaming for units, any units, will be in conflict with the Mandarins' need to keep the money from OFS protectorates coming in.

I still think some small but ambitious polities in other Quadrants might try to each chunks of the verge. Maybe there isn't anyone Andie or Haven sized. But a more Functional version of Monica would love to claim overlordship in some form over as many planets as they could claim. Think of Rome, with the Legions being normally able to smack any Barbarian tribes, but after a long war with Persia, the Legions are exhausted and now the Slavs, Avars, Lombards and Visgoths are hungry and with word of a new power in the South rapidly gaining land with a new religion.

Oh and one place to hit and hit hard is Yildun. Yildun is worth its own provisions in Lacoon. Yildun is both a Wormhole Network, and the home star system for Technodyne. It lacks inhabited planets, has a junction, and is more likely than not to have hard yards and be a center of SLN MDM research and production.

Zack McBride and at least one other Houdini extracted are still on the freighter though minus their GAUL escort. The Captain of the ship knows where he is supposed to go next (they were outbound and out of the net of the Torch frigates) so although Zack doesn't have his guard, he is probably going to be delivered to the next place the freighter is going. The question we can't answer is if the freighter is going to make it or is something else going to come up and it diverts (or is taken by a hostile power).

It would appear that for the present, the majority of the GA forces are going to stand on the defensive. That does mean that the RMN is holding and will defend the wormhole termini they took with the opening of Lacoon II.
It does not mean that the GA is going to start striking SL Core worlds. That is mostly a political decision but it does concentrate GA forces instead of throwing them around known space and having to get back again. Remember, Manticore really doesn't want to have to try and hold systems against their will. Haven has recently given up the conquest version of growing their economy and, along with all the reasons Manticore has for not wanting to start hammering SL systems, they have a large number of their former conquests with whom they have to work out the details of living together.

The Aldermani may be looking to "tear Mesa a new one" but I doubt they are ready to try and take and hold any of the SL or SL controlled Verge systems and add them to the Empire. They and Manticore already have a lot on their plates with the Silesia annexations and Manticore also having those new systems in Talbot to bring up to speed, fully into the SEM and defend.

There is also the problem Manticore and Grayson have with replacing thier orbital manufacturing and infrastructure plus training up the people to get said operations and manufacturing back into some reasonable level of capacity. Having Beowulf take the 10,000 person casaulaty beating (and there are going to be material losses, we just don't know what yet) that is going to set back the Manticore/Grayson rebuilding by a fair margin.

While the Mandarins can scream all they want about Meyers (when they hear about it) and then "somebody" taking over the Mesa system, nobody is yet actually attacking any SL Core Worlds or Members. The closest thing is PROBABLY going to be whatever hits Beowulf and that is NOT going to be the GA so it is either going to be something by the SL or Alignment. Even if it is the Alignment, I think the blame is going to come back on the SL, probably Battle Fleet, and trigger destruction of the League.

That is still going to take time but without something very clear to say it wasn't something the SLN caused in the attempt to keep Beowulf from sucessfully succeeding then many of the League Members are going to want to change the rules and keep the Mandarins and the Buracracy from taking the same kind of action against them.

We shall see.

feyhunde wrote:
I'll argue for hitting the reserve and the hard yards because it helps the Verge get set on fire. Battle Fleet showing up is what makes fighting the SLN unthinkable for most. If Battle Fleet is a non issue in the medium run, it lets places like Maya Sector bet they can make a go of it. Other OFS sectors may have similar goals, although lack the sophistication of Maya's plans.

...

Oh and one place to hit and hit hard is Yildun. Yildun is worth its own provisions in Lacoon. Yildun is both a Wormhole Network, and the home star system for Technodyne. It lacks inhabited planets, has a junction, and is more likely than not to have hard yards and be a center of SLN MDM research and production.

Yildun is a juicy target and likely worthwhile.

Another great target would be the fleet train. From the textev it is obvious that Haven and Manticore consider the SLNs fleet train and logistics system to be grossly inadequate. Taking out or even substantially trashing it would mission-kill all of those obsolete SDs in the Reserve.

I'd like to further emphasize the fleet train and logistics. Battle Fleet has essentially zero experience fighting an extended war, and especially given the missile-heavy tactics that that war would certainly entail (I imagine it would take quite a few freighters to transport ten thousand missile pods) logistics are critical. That is a huge weak spot of the SLN and a very good place for the GA to hit very hard.

Plus, hitting the SLN logistics system puts even more pressure on the remaining Solarian freighters and the League's economy.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:Yildun is a juicy target and likely worthwhile.

Yildun is also wholly owned by Technodyne Industries of Yildun and IIRC, not a League member. It is a legitimate target for the RMN because Technodyne has been intimately involved in attacks and plots against Manticore and Torch. (almost all of the former SLN ships provided to "pirates," Monica, and the PNE were supposedly recycled by TIY.)

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:Another great target would be the fleet train.

Targeting specifically the "Fleet Train" is not really necessary; the SLN relies on civilian contract shipping and the commerce raiding element of Lacoon will deal with that resource without trying to trace SLN movements precisely.

Ironically, I think a lot of the "fleet train" contractors would have been Manticoran and just pulling Manticoran ships from the League did nearly unrecoverable damage to the SLN logistics.

Weird Harold wrote:

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:Yildun is a juicy target and likely worthwhile.

Yildun is also wholly owned by Technodyne Industries of Yildun and IIRC, not a League member. It is a legitimate target for the RMN because Technodyne has been intimately involved in attacks and plots against Manticore and Torch. (almost all of the former SLN ships provided to "pirates," Monica, and the PNE were supposedly recycled by TIY.)

Yildun would be a target anyway because of the junction under Lacoon 2. I'm mildly surprised that it hasn't been hit already. I'm not sure where the notion that Yildun is wholly owned by Technodyne comes from, though, or that it's not a League member.

JohnRoth wrote:Yildun would be a target anyway because of the junction under Lacoon 2. I'm mildly surprised that it hasn't been hit already. I'm not sure where the notion that Yildun is wholly owned by Technodyne comes from, though, or that it's not a League member.

Yildun has no habitable planets and is notable only for the second-oldest wormhole and Technodyne industries' shipyards. I don't believe transtellars can qualify as League Members and there is no other mention of any political entity in Yildun. Plus, TIY has a seat of the Board of Mesa which is explicitly stated as not a league member -- I doubt that Technodyne is both "Solarian" and "Mesan."

Weird Harold wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Yildun would be a target anyway because of the junction under Lacoon 2. I'm mildly surprised that it hasn't been hit already. I'm not sure where the notion that Yildun is wholly owned by Technodyne comes from, though, or that it's not a League member.

Yildun has no habitable planets and is notable only for the second-oldest wormhole and Technodyne industries' shipyards. I don't believe transtellars can qualify as League Members and there is no other mention of any political entity in Yildun. Plus, TIY has a seat of the Board of Mesa which is explicitly stated as not a league member -- I doubt that Technodyne is both "Solarian" and "Mesan."

There's a difference between "has been noted for" and "is notable only for". RFC hasn't gifted us with a comprehensive description of everything that's going on in Yildun. We only know what's important to the story at that point.

The status of the Yildun system has never been clarified; I find it rather unlikely that it's not a Solarian League member.

Technodyne of Mesa has a seat on the Mesa Board of Directors, not Technodyne of Yildun.