Terms of Surrender (for the Mandarins)

--snipping--

AFAIK no Haven systems have been attacked by the Sollies, thus the Republic would have no individual remit to attack the league, I assume the military alliance with the SEM proposed by Pritchard is a mutual defence treaty so along with the other members of the GA any attacks by the SLN would be covered.

The use of any RHN ships in offensive actions against the SLN before action by the SLN against RHN ships or Haven systems, (as opposed to the defensive actions by the GA fleets at Manticore) would be a political minefield which would be like giving the Mandarins home field advantage.
....

I know what you mean. I'm referring to what Thomas Theisman said to Filerata about the SLN being so corrupt and venal or so long, that they can't be allowed to remain in charge anymore. I'd assume he didn't make that up on the fly and that he has Pritchart's express permission to reach down the Mandarin's proverbial throats and rip their livers out, politically. So no, they wouldn't act on their own for no good reason, but if the RMN, etc. were busy elsewhere and Elizabeth asked, there's that mutual defense thing and buhbye bureacratic control of the verge, the shell, and the core. It is called the REPUBLIC of Haven after all.

The Sollies WILL receive data on upgrading their backward fleets. Military secrets have a way of becoming non secret. If anything else, once experiencing the bad end of Manti tech, it will get the Sollies to understand that it does exist. Just knowing something is possible is half way to achieving your own.

Sosss, will the Manties and the GA understand that they are tickling the hind leg of that very big and very powerful 800 pound Gorilla? If the GA goes for a quick victory, it will quickly become neither victory nor quick. The GA can not physically destroy the entire Sollie League. Not by a factor of at least 10. Maybe even more.

What if the Sollies or the Mandarins tell the GA to pound sand? What then? Both sides know that in 3 to 5 years the Sollie fleets will pound out and roll over ANY possible GA fleet. This goes beyond political. It becomes industrial potential. Again folks, there is no GA victory here. History proves victory goes to the "Biggest Battalions".

Soss, what to do? Wage peace. The GA needs to huff and puff and try to get the Mandarins AND the Sollie League to lay off. The problem is can the GA get the Sollies to NOT consider just rebuilding their huge fleet potential and then much later, (years) just turning on the GA? That is the problem. Long term Galactic Peace may not be a coming.

HB of CJ wrote:.

Sosss, will the Manties and the GA understand that they are tickling the hind leg of that very big and very powerful 800 pound Gorilla? If the GA goes for a quick victory, it will quickly become neither victory nor quick. The GA can not physically destroy the entire Sollie League. Not by a factor of at least 10. Maybe even more.

Technically they could, but only in the "salt the earth" kind of way. While, given time, the League worlds will redress the military tech and force imbalance they virtually certainly can't do so fast enough to stop someone with the GA's current advantages from rolling through and raining relativistic hellfire down on each and every planet in the League.

Now there is exactly no chance that anyone in power in the GA is considering that, or that their militaries would obey orders to perform such atrocities - but if you magically swapped them with ravaging hordes from the Andromeda galaxy I don't see any way the SLN or the various system defense forces could last long enough for new production to stem the tide of defeat.

They would destroy Manticore. Frac C strikes into the suns would sterilize the system. And it's hard to miss and very hard to defend.

And if needed, the MA would act to save humanity, for purely selfless reason. Just ask them.

Look, what HB said about military secrets is true enough, but there are several factors to consider.

First, of course, is that both major members of the GA have extensive, decades-long experience with keeping their military secrets secret. The League has no such experience. The overwhelming might and reputation of the League precluded any imperative to keep their tech secret at all costs. No one else, as far as the Sollies were concerned, had the resources or ability to even develop tech that was within range of the League's tech, never mind actually being able to challenge the League.

Secondly, that overwhelming arrogance of the Sollies will take years to completely eradicate. That is relevant because it informs the Sollies' willingness, maybe even the ability to realize the necessity, to commit the resources to build an effective espionage network within the GA's military establishment. Also, it will affect their ability to recognize the nature of some of the GA's core technologies, such as the Grayson reactors (which is considered to be such a backward technology as to be almost in the realms of myth).

Thirdly, the necessity to build such an espionage network from the ground up. The League has absolutely nothing in place. Nothing. And while the MAllign does have an intelligence operation going, they have not been very successful in infiltrating the GA's military establishments, and besides, the last thing the MAllign is interested in is to allow the League to win the war with the GA, so they won't be sharing. That means that the League will have to start from scratch. It will take years.

Fourthly, the League's ships and missiles are currently so outclassed that it cannot even count on capturing GA ships or wreckage to reverse engineer.

Fifthly, what all of this means is that the League will have to play catch-up from a position that is twenty T-years outdated already.

The USA and particular the USN in WW2 did just fine. We reduced the world's third, (3rd) largest modern navy, (Japan) in less than 4 years to scrap iron and that was just the stuff still afloat.

Yeah, we had a slight head start, (Two Ocean Navy Law) but the real war was in Europe and THAT one caught the USA flat footed. We all know how that war ended up; even quicker than the Pacific navy war.

Again, it is just running the numbers. How many systems does the GA have? How many are heavily industrialized? How many industrialized systems do the Sollies have? Divide the small number into the big number. The GA will not even begin to be able to keep up.

Everything the GA can do right now, the Sollies will be able to do 100 times better in LESS THAN THREE YEARS. Do the math. Now do the math for 5 years! Even with the Andes commenting suicide and joining up with the GA, the GA is doomed in the end. Yikes!

If I were the GA, the last thing I would want to do is piss off that sleeping giant, the Sollie League. I see no way to win this coming shooting match ... in the end all the equations indicated a total GA defeat. Total. Manticore slagged. Everybody dead and gone.

Respectfully.

HB of CJ wrote:If I were the GA, the last thing I would want to do is piss off that sleeping giant, the Sollie League. I see no way to win this coming shooting match ... in the end all the equations indicated a total GA defeat. Total. Manticore slagged. Everybody dead and gone.

No, under the guidance of OFS I'm sure they could be turned into productive citizens of the league in a few decades.

HB of CJ wrote:The USA and particular the USN in WW2 did just fine. We reduced the world's third, (3rd) largest modern navy, (Japan) in less than 4 years to scrap iron and that was just the stuff still afloat.

Yeah, we had a slight head start, (Two Ocean Navy Law) but the real war was in Europe and THAT one caught the USA flat footed. We all know how that war ended up; even quicker than the Pacific navy war.

Again, it is just running the numbers. How many systems does the GA have? How many are heavily industrialized? How many industrialized systems do the Sollies have? Divide the small number into the big number. The GA will not even begin to be able to keep up.

Everything the GA can do right now, the Sollies will be able to do 100 times better in LESS THAN THREE YEARS. Do the math. Now do the math for 5 years! Even with the Andes commenting suicide and joining up with the GA, the GA is doomed in the end. Yikes!

If I were the GA, the last thing I would want to do is piss off that sleeping giant, the Sollie League. I see no way to win this coming shooting match ... in the end all the equations indicated a total GA defeat. Total. Manticore slagged. Everybody dead and gone.

Respectfully.

Which is why the goal of the GA is to break up the SL.

I say it would take more like five to ten years for the SLN to catch up. This is more do with the leagues size making coordination of research and construction very difficult to say the least. The lag time in the bureaucracy will also slow things down. You must take in to account that the SL dos not have the centralized authority to really do anything quick or easy.

pnakasone wrote:I say it would take more like five to ten years for the SLN to catch up. This is more do with the leagues size making coordination of research and construction very difficult to say the least. The lag time in the bureaucracy will also slow things down. You must take in to account that the SL dos not have the centralized authority to really do anything quick or easy.

If the league survived I suspect it would resemble the current league in name only. Kind of how the CSA did by the end of the war.

There is one additional aspect in all this mess. The Sollies at large don't have developed the necessary mindset. They are not at a war footing the way Manticore and Haven are. Why should they? They knew already they were the biggest and meanest gorilla in the neighborhood. After all, no other star nation would be crazy enough to attack the invincible Solarian League. That is a kind of genetical anchored belief you simply can't eradicate fast enough.

Because, the eradication of this ... genetically ingrained mental lazyness alone is a herculanean task that would need at least a generation; more probably two or three. In other words - much more time as both the GA and the Mesan Alignment are willing to give them.