While we're waiting - An OAR Question

Seeing as we have some time until the next book is released, I decided to start at the beginning and re-read the entire series. Right away I ran into something I've always wondered about: why execute Breakaway in the manner they did?

As it's described in OAR, Admiral Pei's Task Force One included 46 ships intended for Operation Ark and an additional 46 ships in stealth. The dreadnoughts and carriers in stealth didn't participate at all in the fight to break out of the Sol system, and only came out of stealth when Breakaway was executed and the the Operation Ark ships dropped out of hyper. The stealth ships replaced the colony ships in the formation and let themselves be followed (and eventually destroyed) by the Gbaba.

Isn't that overly complicated? That means that the Operation Ark ships did participate in the breakout fight. Those were the ships filled with the colonists and terraforming supplies. Why not have those ships in stealth instead of involved in the fighting? Then there wouldn't be a need for the complicated dance of having the Ark ships time their drop to sub-light exactly with the other ships dropping their stealth. Plus there would be too many ships in stealth if any of the Ark ships were destroyed in the fight to get away from Earth. If the whole idea was to show the Gbaba the same size fleet both before and after Breakaway, that wouldn't work.

The only reason I can see for the intricate plan is if it's impossible to drop out of hyper while in stealth. Even then it's not clear why the Ark ships participated in the fight. If they had been in stealth then and then switched for the other ships once clear of the Gbaba, that would have made for a safer option. It would have been more involved switching the ships in and out of stealth twice, but it would also mean the fleet seen at Earth would match the fleet finally destroyed.

I did a quick search on the subject and didn't see anything from RFC specifically on this point (although it's possible I missed it). Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

I know it made sense at the time...

But yes, I agree that it seems like they did it the hard way. The one thing I can think of, and I'm not sure how much I like the idea, is that it was tied to the stealth systems themselves. In essence, they couldn't count on running their systems in deception mode for long enough, or effectively enough, and they felt that they had to have some obvious colony ships in the fleet or the Gbaba might not buy the package. It could be that the fakes had a significant risk of being revealed for what they were before the end of the run - particularly during the break-out itself, which would have been fought at pretty close quarters. Another possibility is that under those conditions they couldn't have hidden the transports effectively given how big they were, so they left them out in the open, and simply protected them as well as they could, just as the Gbaba would be expecting them to.

Nick wrote:Seeing as we have some time until the next book is released, I decided to start at the beginning and re-read the entire series. Right away I ran into something I've always wondered about: why execute Breakaway in the manner they did?

As it's described in OAR, Admiral Pei's Task Force One included 46 ships intended for Operation Ark and an additional 46 ships in stealth. The dreadnoughts and carriers in stealth didn't participate at all in the fight to break out of the Sol system, and only came out of stealth when Breakaway was executed and the the Operation Ark ships dropped out of hyper. The stealth ships replaced the colony ships in the formation and let themselves be followed (and eventually destroyed) by the Gbaba.

Isn't that overly complicated? That means that the Operation Ark ships did participate in the breakout fight. Those were the ships filled with the colonists and terraforming supplies. Why not have those ships in stealth instead of involved in the fighting? Then there wouldn't be a need for the complicated dance of having the Ark ships time their drop to sub-light exactly with the other ships dropping their stealth. Plus there would be too many ships in stealth if any of the Ark ships were destroyed in the fight to get away from Earth. If the whole idea was to show the Gbaba the same size fleet both before and after Breakaway, that wouldn't work.

The only reason I can see for the intricate plan is if it's impossible to drop out of hyper while in stealth. Even then it's not clear why the Ark ships participated in the fight. If they had been in stealth then and then switched for the other ships once clear of the Gbaba, that would have made for a safer option. It would have been more involved switching the ships in and out of stealth twice, but it would also mean the fleet seen at Earth would match the fleet finally destroyed.

I did a quick search on the subject and didn't see anything from RFC specifically on this point (although it's possible I missed it). Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

Louis R wrote:The one thing I can think of, and I'm not sure how much I like the idea, is that it was tied to the stealth systems themselves.

You mean the stealth systems that transports generally don't have?

The Operation Ark ships didn't have, or never engaged any stealth systems, they just dropped out of hyper -- i.e. dropped out of sight. The decoy ships changed their stealth to mimic the ships that dropped out so that the Gbaba would not detect a difference in the decoy formation.

It was complicated, but really the only way a bunch of transports could escape the Gbaba.

Hmmm... maybe that's why it made sense! When I read it the first time, I just assumed that that was what was going on.

In the rereads, though, there must have been something that tickled at me, because I've asked myself Nick's question more than once. Possibly just that the situation is made explicit.

Weird Harold wrote:

Louis R wrote:The one thing I can think of, and I'm not sure how much I like the idea, is that it was tied to the stealth systems themselves.

You mean the stealth systems that transports generally don't have?

The Operation Ark ships didn't have, or never engaged any stealth systems, they just dropped out of hyper -- i.e. dropped out of sight. The decoy ships changed their stealth to mimic the ships that dropped out so that the Gbaba would not detect a difference in the decoy formation.

It was complicated, but really the only way a bunch of transports could escape the Gbaba.

Basically I always assumed that the stealth systems needed to cover running engines where to big/massive to be placed on transports that needed every ounce of their weight to carry the colonists and terraforming equipment.

While it would have been possible to build stealthed transports, they would have to sacrifice too much of their transport capacity to get good enough stealth.

So basically they build the (probably unarmed) stealthed decoys to get through the Gbaba sphere around earth undetected while the true warships and the transports are counted, and on breakout the transports shut down their engines and all systems for several months while the stealthed ships came out to pretend they were those transports until the gbaba were lured far enough away to not detect the colony fleet when it reactivated its engines and went into hyper in a different direction.

Weird Harold wrote:

Louis R wrote:The one thing I can think of, and I'm not sure how much I like the idea, is that it was tied to the stealth systems themselves.

You mean the stealth systems that transports generally don't have?

The Operation Ark ships didn't have, or never engaged any stealth systems, they just dropped out of hyper -- i.e. dropped out of sight. The decoy ships changed their stealth to mimic the ships that dropped out so that the Gbaba would not detect a difference in the decoy formation.

It was complicated, but really the only way a bunch of transports could escape the Gbaba.

OK, I'll buy that ... somewhat. It does explain why the charade, although I'm surprised that the Ark ships had no stealth capabilities. Is that in the text somewhere or just inferred? It does bring up one other issue. It's said that the ships in stealth are all dreadnoughts and carriers, I'm guessing to mimic the size of the transports. Do they think the Gbaba won't notice the difference once they do catch TF1? Or are they assuming that they can continue to disguise them through the battle and it's either impossible to tell the difference from the wreckage or the Gbaba won't make the effort? Either of those last two seem reasonable, but when the existence of Humanity is on the line little details like that matter.

Nick wrote:Do they think the Gbaba won't notice the difference once they do catch TF1?

No, the hope is that the Gbaba won't notice the difference in time to pinpoint where the switch was made and be able to track Operation Ark.

Remember this is a last ditch plan to allow a small remnant of humanity to escape the Gbaba. TF1 intends to lead the Gbaba as far, away for as long as possible; hopefully far enough and as long enough to make finding Operation Ark impossible.

Weird Harold wrote:

Nick wrote:Do they think the Gbaba won't notice the difference once they do catch TF1?

No, the hope is that the Gbaba won't notice the difference in time to pinpoint where the switch was made and be able to track Operation Ark.

Remember this is a last ditch plan to allow a small remnant of humanity to escape the Gbaba. TF1 intends to lead the Gbaba as far, away for as long as possible; hopefully far enough and as long enough to make finding Operation Ark impossible.

Of course, at the point that you are being tracked by one scout, and are sure it is just one scout, splitting into two 23-ship units gives the scout problems tracking both of you. However, perhaps you need all those ships for a successful colony.

phillies wrote:Of course, at the point that you are being tracked by one scout, and are sure it is just one scout, splitting into two 23-ship units gives the scout problems tracking both of you. However, perhaps you need all those ships for a successful colony.

The point was to convince the Gbaba that they got ALL the ships. If 23 ships break away and just vanish, then the Gbaba are going to know that 23 ships got away and start searching for them. Which means any colony those ships create is more likely to be discovered.

However, if the Gbaba are convinced they killed all the break away ships, then they're not going to systematically search for a colony they "know" they already killed. That makes the actual colony much more secure against discovery. Hence the entire bait and switch scheme in the first place.

I think it was because RFC needed a "good" reason for Nimue Albans to be dead.

Nick wrote:Seeing as we have some time until the next book is released, I decided to start at the beginning and re-read the entire series. Right away I ran into something I've always wondered about: why execute Breakaway in the manner they did?

As it's described in OAR, Admiral Pei's Task Force One included 46 ships intended for Operation Ark and an additional 46 ships in stealth. The dreadnoughts and carriers in stealth didn't participate at all in the fight to break out of the Sol system, and only came out of stealth when Breakaway was executed and the the Operation Ark ships dropped out of hyper. The stealth ships replaced the colony ships in the formation and let themselves be followed (and eventually destroyed) by the Gbaba.

Isn't that overly complicated? That means that the Operation Ark ships did participate in the breakout fight. Those were the ships filled with the colonists and terraforming supplies. Why not have those ships in stealth instead of involved in the fighting? Then there wouldn't be a need for the complicated dance of having the Ark ships time their drop to sub-light exactly with the other ships dropping their stealth. Plus there would be too many ships in stealth if any of the Ark ships were destroyed in the fight to get away from Earth. If the whole idea was to show the Gbaba the same size fleet both before and after Breakaway, that wouldn't work.

The only reason I can see for the intricate plan is if it's impossible to drop out of hyper while in stealth. Even then it's not clear why the Ark ships participated in the fight. If they had been in stealth then and then switched for the other ships once clear of the Gbaba, that would have made for a safer option. It would have been more involved switching the ships in and out of stealth twice, but it would also mean the fleet seen at Earth would match the fleet finally destroyed.

I did a quick search on the subject and didn't see anything from RFC specifically on this point (although it's possible I missed it). Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?