Last use for SL SD captured

kzt wrote:Installing mycroft in a system doesn't give them anything. It's like giving someone skynet. It's all networked modified KH2s running the logic provided by the RMN. Once it is installed by the RMN the recipient of this gift is NEVER taking it out, as you cannot approach the control or weapon nodes without being engaged.

That's only true as long as you have people in control of it who are willing to destroy it to prevent the recipients from trying to work around the anti-tamper measures to access the hardware for reverse engineering.

Heck, just a close visual inspection of the aft end of a DDM or MDM would give major clues about how the baffle trick worked (hey what are these extra grav emitters scattered between the 3 impeller rings?)

Leaving working samples of weapons around, or especially spare parts for maintenance, without trusted human supervision is just asking for the tech to get stolen.


Now if Manticore or Haven provide personnel to man to fort or station that's running Mycroft of Moriarty then yeah, that's providing system defense without necessarily handing over the keys to the tech. But if you turn it over entirely to indigenous personnel the risk seems far higher. And people upthread seem to have been advocating turning it over entirely to the ex-League systems.

For example at Alizon and Zanzibar, as someone already mentioned, the Manty-tech LACs and MDMs were under direct control of Manitcoran military personnel. Yes the system defense command ultimately took orders from the civilian government of the system; but I assume there were limits on the orders they could accept - they'd blow the hardware before allowing unauthorized access to it.
Erewhon probably got MDM system defense pods too, they were a more useful ally that Zanzibar or Alizon, but they didn't have the tech details - they only knew how to build ERMs; Manticore presumably packed up and took away all the pods and LACs when Erewhon withdrew from the Alliance during the ceasefire (which is why they weren't around for Erewhon to work with Haven on reverse engineering after they signed a mutual defense pact with Haven and turned over some of their other Manti-lite tech).

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:Installing mycroft in a system doesn't give them anything. It's like giving someone skynet. It's all networked modified KH2s running the logic provided by the RMN. Once it is installed by the RMN the recipient of this gift is NEVER taking it out, as you cannot approach the control or weapon nodes without being engaged.

That's only true as long as you have people in control of it who are willing to destroy it to prevent the recipients from trying to work around the anti-tamper measures to access the hardware for reverse engineering.

Heck, just a close visual inspection of the aft end of a DDM or MDM would give major clues about how the baffle trick worked (hey what are these extra grav emitters scattered between the 3 impeller rings?)

Leaving working samples of weapons around, or especially spare parts for maintenance, without trusted human supervision is just asking for the tech to get stolen.


Now if Manticore or Haven provide personnel to man to fort or station that's running Mycroft of Moriarty then yeah, that's providing system defense without necessarily handing over the keys to the tech. But if you turn it over entirely to indigenous personnel the risk seems far higher. And people upthread seem to have been advocating turning it over entirely to the ex-League systems.

Mycroft is manticore and does include FTL. Moriarty is haven and does not.

Mycroft and system defence pods are just waiting to have the tech stolen by the bad guys.

Moriarty and ERM powered pods would give protection and not risk the MDM or FTL technology falling into the hands of the MA or SL.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Why? Is Sigs too paranoid even for Janacek's Admiralty?

It's uncalled for because we're having a discussion here, and we're all at least theoretically having it in good faith. There's no call to start tossing around insults.

I don't consider it an insult, just an observation that a rabid insistence that letting anything out of Manticoran control will result everything being sold to the higest bidder is highly reminiscent of the attitude that drove Erewhon to change sides (and give Manticoran secrets to Haven) and Zanzibar and Alizon (and others) to leave the Manticoran Alliance against Haven.

MuonNeutrino wrote:

What exactly would they have to do? Signing a mutual defense treaty is how Alizon and Zanzibar became "full members of the MA" What more is one of Beowulf's daughter colonies, for example, going to have to do to get Manticoran Tech?

I think we're somewhat talking past each other here. At least in my mind, a mutual defense treaty between two star nations both in the path of the oncoming peep juggernaut, who both know that war is coming and coming soon, and that by signing such a treaty they're effectively signing on as full co-defendants in an imminent hot shooting war, is not the same thing as *just* a mutual defense treaty between recent enemies still feeling their way into a non-antagonistic relationship, and the junior partner of which is not actually actively at war.

Beowulf voted on whether to secede or not and the Mandarins and SLN prepared to attack (rumor has it that 10,000,000 Beowulfans will die as a result.) What makes you think any other system that actually votes to secede isn't "in the path of an oncoming juggernaut" and a "co-defendent in a shooting war?'

MuonNeutrino wrote:But it feels to me that you're regarding a mutual defense treaty as a significantly closer relationship that I am, which is why I think we're talking past each other. Definitely anyone who is actually signing on as an ally (e.g. your example of one of Beowulf's daughter colonies, who presumably would be eager to follow their mother world in going after the alignment) would justifiably get manty tech in relatively short order.

There are other kinds of treaties to cover non-military alliances or even lesser military agreements. "Mutual Defense" is the lowest level of "Alliance," the dividing line between "Trading Partner" and "Allie."

An example of a lesser military treaty is the Military Assistance agreement with South Vietnam; We fought as a separate military force there and sold them military surplus equipment -- of Korean War vintage for the most part. The closest thing to "modern" tech we sold them was F-5/T-38 and A/T-37 fighters and trainers.

Israel has a different level of Military Assistance which amounts to we'll sell them almost anything including the latest stealth fighter. (Israel is the only F-35 partner allowed to modify them to suit their needs.) We buy almost as much military tech from Israel as they buy from us. We are NOT committed to come to Israel's defense.

You're thing that only something like NATO qualifies as Mutual Defense, and that's not true. There is a whole spectrum of Mutual Defense and Military Assistance options and the GA/Manticore/Individual GA members will probably manage to to negotiate most of them.

Not every Successor State is going to sign a mutual defense treaty with the GA or a member of the GA -- and thus not get "Haven Sector Tech" directly from the GA. The initial targets of the Renaissance Factor are probably in that classification; they're primed to sign on with their "friend" and be dragged into the RF when it goes public. That "mutual defense" treaty is probably going to be worded differently than what the GA offers.

Those systems willing to go further than "let us buy some of that neat tech" are going to sign Mutual Defense treaties and become Allies, otherwise they're going to sign on with someone else or not sign military treaties with anyone. (on the probably inaccurate assumption that the GA will protect them from them from the SLN anyway; a la New Tuscany.)

Major hole in your example is that all three partners had officers and enlisted with _exactly_ the same training as RMN personnel. Operational, tactical and engineering. Many of said personnel served in RMN commands with equal access to all the 'secrets', so-called, of the technology they were using and maintaining.

Even the few things that Erewhon can't build, if they make it big enough - and the textev is that they did know all about MDMs - they know what it is they can't build and why they can't build it. The delusion that technological secrets exist, and can be kept, is one of the sillier ones I see people embrace. It's far safer and more effective to assume that the other side knows exactly what you're doing and how you're doing it, and make it work for you anyway.

Jonathan_S wrote:

kzt wrote:Installing mycroft in a system doesn't give them anything. It's like giving someone skynet. It's all networked modified KH2s running the logic provided by the RMN. Once it is installed by the RMN the recipient of this gift is NEVER taking it out, as you cannot approach the control or weapon nodes without being engaged.

That's only true as long as you have people in control of it who are willing to destroy it to prevent the recipients from trying to work around the anti-tamper measures to access the hardware for reverse engineering.

Heck, just a close visual inspection of the aft end of a DDM or MDM would give major clues about how the baffle trick worked (hey what are these extra grav emitters scattered between the 3 impeller rings?)

Leaving working samples of weapons around, or especially spare parts for maintenance, without trusted human supervision is just asking for the tech to get stolen.


Now if Manticore or Haven provide personnel to man to fort or station that's running Mycroft of Moriarty then yeah, that's providing system defense without necessarily handing over the keys to the tech. But if you turn it over entirely to indigenous personnel the risk seems far higher. And people upthread seem to have been advocating turning it over entirely to the ex-League systems.

For example at Alizon and Zanzibar, as someone already mentioned, the Manty-tech LACs and MDMs were under direct control of Manitcoran military personnel. Yes the system defense command ultimately took orders from the civilian government of the system; but I assume there were limits on the orders they could accept - they'd blow the hardware before allowing unauthorized access to it.
Erewhon probably got MDM system defense pods too, they were a more useful ally that Zanzibar or Alizon, but they didn't have the tech details - they only knew how to build ERMs; Manticore presumably packed up and took away all the pods and LACs when Erewhon withdrew from the Alliance during the ceasefire (which is why they weren't around for Erewhon to work with Haven on reverse engineering after they signed a mutual defense pact with Haven and turned over some of their other Manti-lite tech).

Nations trade military technology back and forth all the time. As a RW example look at the U.S. Aegis system it is arguably the best missile defense system in the world. It is currently aboard the JMSDF Kongo class destroyers which look a lot like USN Burke class destroyers and a variant is on the RN Type 45 class destroyers. Also the RN has Trident CIII SLBM aboard its SSBN's, we also sold them Polaris and Poseidon SLBM in the 60's and 70's. Currently there are five or six navies using Perry class frigates, not to mention the ROC using Kidd class destroyers. But sometimes we blow it big time like when we sold the F-14 to Iran but because of lack of spare parts and proper maintenance only about 10-15% are still flying. Another example look at Canada its military currently has German Leopard I tanks and Canadian built CF-18 fighters. Also during WWII the Swiss air force had both ME 109 and Hurricane fighters

Jonathan_S wrote:...And people upthread seem to have been advocating turning it over entirely to the ex-League systems. ...

Mostly that would be me.

One severe constraint Manticore specifically and the GA as a whole is going to be working under is a shortage of manpower. Haven and Beowulf together in the short-term and the entire GA on the medium-term can build far more Mycroft modules, LACs and modular LAC bases than they can man.

I would guess that they are going to be hard-pressed to provide top-notch cadre to train locals just to operate the systems on a monkey-see-monkey-do level. Training maintainers and strategists will be harder and take longer.

The closer to Sol a system is located the less basic technology will be needed, but all of the successor states are going to require some technical training to maintain and operate Haven Sector Tech effectively. Selected locals can, and probably will be, scheduled through Haven Sector tech schools and military academies.

The bottom line, the GA can't carry out the "Harrington Doctrine" without turning over "Haven Sector Tech" of some level -- MDM and LAC technology at minimum -- because they simply don't have the ships or manpower to play universal police and protector.

saber964 wrote:Nations trade military technology back and forth all the time. -snipped to relevant- Another example look at Canada its military currently has German Leopard I tanks and Canadian built CF-18 fighters. Also during WWII the Swiss air force had both ME 109 and Hurricane fighters

Yeah, but as a Canadian, we laugh about it because CF-18's are still F/A-18 Hornets from the late 70's, and everytime us Canadians manage to convince our politicians to finally pony up and admit we need a newer fighter, they get to the pricetag of "modern" tech and balk.

Likewise in Honorverse, upkeep fees will play a major role in whether various nations agree to buy or lease Manticore's absolute cutting edge technology. It's far more likely that the majority will actually insist on "better than SLN, but not the best you got" simply because they couldn't afford the very latest. And that anyone who does try to insist on receiving as much of the very latest & greatest will cause Manticore to look more closely.


Capacitor MDM's in pods designed for system defense and LAC's are both better than Frontier Fleet can really fight, and utterly dirt cheap. Which is frankly why the Janacek Admiralty went overboard trying to put only LAC's and system defense MDM's emplacements everywhere. The only differences would be Manticore was putting all up fusion birds into place to protect Alizon and Zanzibar.

But Manticore clearly still have/had capacitor birds because one of the options to 'modernize' the Andermani wallers was to reload the Andermani pods with Manty capacitor birds because IAN fusion birds were both bulkier and lower performance than Manty capacitor birds. If they had enough missiles to load possibly load thousands of IAN pods with capacitor birds, they could probably still be sitting on large stockpiles to export to former League members.

Somtaaw wrote:But Manticore clearly still have/had capacitor birds because one of the options to 'modernize' the Andermani wallers was to reload the Andermani pods with Manty capacitor birds because IAN fusion birds were both bulkier and lower performance than Manty capacitor birds. If they had enough missiles to load possibly load thousands of IAN pods with capacitor birds, they could probably still be sitting on large stockpiles to export to former League members.

One minor correction; I don't believe the IAN cracked microfusion tech. Their SD(P)s fired dual drive capacitor powered missiles that were larger than Manticore's 3 drive capacitor powered birds.

But you're right that one (discarded) plan was to just give the IAN Manti capacitor MDMs to get the IAN podnaughts out to the front lines sooner (without having to retrofit the mechanisms to light the fusion bird's reactors immediately prior to rolling pods).
Though I'm not sure if that meant Manticore had all that large a stockpile or if they just could could just quickly bring Mk41 production lines back in service...

Still even if Manticore doesn't have piles of Mk41s lying around Haven still has active production lines churning out their slightly lower tech, slightly more massive, capacitor powered MDMs.

The Haven sector doesn't have to give away its tech per say it just has to provide adequate protection for it new friends like the Kingdom of Meyers and the Madras sector. First they don't have to provide first rate equipment like Sag-C class or Shrike-B class ships, they could supply Star Knight class and Shrike class ships for that matter why not turn over some of Thurgoods captured light forces. I'm sure that War Harvest and Gladiator class ships will be more than adequate for most pirates and if the SLN should send in heavy units. The RMN will be more than happy to send them packing with their tails firmly between the legs.

Somtaaw wrote:Capacitor MDM's in pods designed for system defense and LAC's are both better than Frontier Fleet can really fight, and utterly dirt cheap. Which is frankly why the Janacek Admiralty went overboard trying to put only LAC's and system defense MDM's emplacements everywhere. The only differences would be Manticore was putting all up fusion birds into place to protect Alizon and Zanzibar.
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No, notice how their most important forward deployed base didn't have MDMs.

But Manticore clearly still have/had capacitor birds because one of the options to 'modernize' the Andermani wallers was to reload the Andermani pods with Manty capacitor birds because IAN fusion birds were both bulkier and lower performance than Manty capacitor birds. If they had enough missiles to load possibly load thousands of IAN pods with capacitor birds, they could probably still be sitting on large stockpiles to export to former League members.

No, they were stored at their main naval bases to reload their fleets. They blowed up real good along with the the bases.

Other than a million plus Mk23 pods Manticore is desperately short of missiles.