The Alignment's Next Step

I've been re-reading and listening to 'Cauldron of Ghosts' cause I feel like 'Shadow of Victory' will have an E-arc any day now.

A thought has occurred to me. What is MA's plan after Houdini.

At the end of Houdini, we have the Mesa system disposed of. Agents are still everywhere, but the MA will have hidden itself as the league war has gone up.

I'm really wondering what their next active move is. The Renaissance Factor isn't yet in a good position. Things need to get worse.

Then it hits me, they can easily make it worse by doing OB attacks on League Targets. All of our threads debating what's worth attacking in the League and the problem of an Alamo for the Grand Alliance can be used to the MA's advantage. They need the League to ultimately fail. But an OB style attack on Earth or other core worlds (like Beowulf) explicitly designed as an EE violation may up game.

It's a risk, but if you say, wipe out the biosphere on Beowulf and Earth in two OB style attacks, blaming the other side for each, the war goes from limited to insanely nasty. The MA has no qualms killing outer members in nuclear attack in Houdini. Killing off a planet is much more abstract.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5762&p=146442

In many ways the Alignment of executing the sort of attack you have posited, convince the Solarian — even the Mandarins, for God's sake — that the Manties were right all along about the Alignment's existence and even the manipulation of the Solarian League. If that happens, the Alignment's ability to exist and operate covertly would be . . . adversely affect it, shall we say? That's a best-case scenario; in a worst-case scenario, the League decides that it doesn't want anyone capable of genociding planets from stealth — especially someone who, according to the Manties, wants to destabilize the League — doing the same thing to any of its planets. In that case, you might see peace breaking out between New Chicago and the Grand Alliance so that both sides can go hunting for the Alignment.

Also:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/271/1

feyhunde wrote:I've been re-reading and listening to 'Cauldron of Ghosts' cause I feel like 'Shadow of Victory' will have an E-arc any day now.

A thought has occurred to me. What is MA's plan after Houdini.

At the end of Houdini, we have the Mesa system disposed of. Agents are still everywhere, but the MA will have hidden itself as the league war has gone up.

I'm really wondering what their next active move is. The Renaissance Factor isn't yet in a good position. Things need to get worse.

Then it hits me, they can easily make it worse by doing OB attacks on League Targets. All of our threads debating what's worth attacking in the League and the problem of an Alamo for the Grand Alliance can be used to the MA's advantage. They need the League to ultimately fail. But an OB style attack on Earth or other core worlds (like Beowulf) explicitly designed as an EE violation may up game.

It's a risk, but if you say, wipe out the biosphere on Beowulf and Earth in two OB style attacks, blaming the other side for each, the war goes from limited to insanely nasty. The MA has no qualms killing outer members in nuclear attack in Houdini. Killing off a planet is much more abstract.

As a new member, you may be missing a couple of facts. First is that RFC has said he intends to finish the story off in the next two books. While we're wondering if he's going to manage it (the original plan was for a five-book series - it's now grown to over 30 books), that doesn't leave a lot of room for escalating things.

Second, RFC has said, very specifically, that he does not like "war porn." He's simply not going to do this.

The often-mentioned "ten million casualties" in the Battle of Beowulf looks like collateral damage to me.

Duckk says: Accidentally clicked the wrong link. Meant to hit "reply with quote" but actually edited your post instead. I tried to put it back the way it was. Sorry.

http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5762&p=146442

In many ways the Alignment of executing the sort of attack you have posited, convince the Solarian — even the Mandarins, for God's sake — that the Manties were right all along about the Alignment's existence and even the manipulation of the Solarian League. If that happens, the Alignment's ability to exist and operate covertly would be . . . adversely affect it, shall we say? That's a best-case scenario; in a worst-case scenario, the League decides that it doesn't want anyone capable of genociding planets from stealth — especially someone who, according to the Manties, wants to destabilize the League — doing the same thing to any of its planets. In that case, you might see peace breaking out between New Chicago and the Grand Alliance so that both sides can go hunting for the Alignment.

Also:

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/271/1

Hitting the reserve: (assuming key parts are not in manned systems) Take out the reserve, require core system to start crash programs for SDs and Pods, stretch Solly unity further as the battle fleet can't cover the core, let alone shell or protectorates.

As for EE attacks not by the MAN. Variant on what happened in 2nd Manticore. Have their fleet admiral launch missiles on civilian targets using nanotech. Make a botch of it. Heck that almost seems like the simplest way since we know there's gonna be an EE violation from snerks. And since breaking the SL is such a key goal for the MA, having SLN forces try and sterilize Beowulf might be the best way utterly ruin the league.

JohnRoth wrote:As a new member, you may be missing a couple of facts. First is that RFC has said he intends to finish the story off in the next two books. While we're wondering if he's going to manage it (the original plan was for a five-book series - it's now grown to over 30 books), that doesn't leave a lot of room for escalating things.

I've been around here and on the Bar for years (~2000). Different names and lurking on and off.

And there's a difference between ML plans, and what gets accomplished. I've mostly been concerned that the MAN seems to be built around a specific weapon which seems to have one single use despite plans for making an even bigger fleet. It strikes me it seems odd for a works once weapon.

Thinking more it makes sense to try and do any such EE violation under false flag anyway, since MWW has stated what the MA really wants is to be shown as right rather than exterminate baseline humanity.

One thing in making plans that you have to take in to account is what if something goes horribly wrong with the plan? What would happen if one their ships gets caught in the act or such attacks cause the Mandarins to decide that GA has been telling them the truth about some other party trying to get them to destroy each other in a massive war.

feyhunde wrote:And there's a difference between ML plans, and what gets accomplished. I've mostly been concerned that the MAN seems to be built around a specific weapon which seems to have one single use despite plans for making an even bigger fleet. It strikes me it seems odd for a works once weapon.

Spider drive ships are no more "works once" ships than nuclear submarines today. Just because the Alliance knows the spider drive exists now doesn't obviate the difficulty in finding them.

Thinking more it makes sense to try and do any such EE violation under false flag anyway, since MWW has stated what the MA really wants is to be shown as right rather than exterminate baseline humanity.

And going around creating inexplicable genocidal attacks is exactly the sort of thing that twigs people to the existence of the MA. Using the spider drive ships to attack Solarian planets or infrastructure from empty space is going to immediately point out their existence to even the most dense Solarian. And using the Alignment's nanotech is even harder, because it can only do very simple, preprogrammed commands; so it cannot force someone to compute a fire plan targeting a planet and execute it. Using either of these would quickly prove the Alliance might be on to something. We've already got some people in the Solarian League starting to investigate those "outlandish, clearly fantastical" claims. Repeated, high profile usage of them will quickly prove them right.

Which is a good argument against EE violations using the MA fleet. But not against attacks on the reserve by the MAN OR EE violations caused by the MA not using their fleet.

Hitting the reserve: (assuming key parts are not in manned systems) Take out the reserve, require core system to start crash programs for SDs and Pods, stretch Solly unity further as the battle fleet can't cover the core, let alone shell or protectorates.

None of which requires the Alignment to take an active role. They don't need to hasten the SLN's destruction. They might not like the formation of the Grand Alliance, but they can certainly see the silver lining in that its combined military could spank the entire SLN several times over. There's no need for them to pour more gasoline on the fire, especially when it could blow up in their faces.

As for EE attacks not by the MAN. Variant on what happened in 2nd Manticore. Have their fleet admiral launch missiles on civilian targets using nanotech. Make a botch of it. Heck that almost seems like the simplest way since we know there's gonna be an EE violation from snerks. And since breaking the SL is such a key goal for the MA, having SLN forces try and sterilize Beowulf might be the best way utterly ruin the league.

And, as I said in my preceding post, the nanotech can only do very basic commands. It cannot extract information from its host, nor can it make decisions on the fly. So it simply cannot compel someone to fire on a planet unless they were 99% of the way there already. In that regard, 2nd Manticore required very little intervention from the Alignment, as the fire plans were all known well in advance. That would not be the case in any Edict violation, because no one goes around with "sterilize all life on the planet" fire plans locked and loaded.

Duckk wrote:That would not be the case in any Edict violation, because no one goes around with "sterilize all life on the planet" fire plans locked and loaded.

Sometimes bad things happen to good missiles, particularly when someone secretly messes with their guidance computer before the battle starts. "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to Earth I knew not where."

Duckk wrote:SNIP
And, as I said in my preceding post, the nanotech can only do very basic commands. It cannot extract information from its host, nor can it make decisions on the fly. So it simply cannot compel someone to fire on a planet unless they were 99% of the way there already. In that regard, 2nd Manticore required very little intervention from the Alignment, as the fire plans were all known well in advance. That would not be the case in any Edict violation, because no one goes around with "sterilize all life on the planet" fire plans locked and loaded.

The basic command is what I'm thinking akin to 2nd Manticore, assuming the MA can't straight up position someone to give the orders having a pre-programmed firing plan for the system infrastructure seems not impossible. Especially if it wasn't so much sterilize all life as it was aimed at major space infrastructure.

After the Beowulf and Haven efforts to help rebuild Manticore, trying to take down the key industrial nodes of Beowulf would be a high MA priority.

Or as some one else points out, using missiles designed to be subverted by onboard agents not using nanotech is another option. If they're using the Technodyne Missiles, we know the MA has extensive access to them.

I'm interested to know other people's alternative ideas for short and medium ranged MA plans. For example, the Spider-drive fleet. The problem for the MA is how to use it again anytime in a way that makes sense. It's a pure strategic weapon to attack infrastructure. Even if they had their fleet in Sigma Draconis, they can't maneuver an intercept with a normal space fleet unless its in drydock.