The ART of being reasonable

cthia wrote:Speaking of the ART of being reasonable. In the RMN's anticipation and reception of the Solarian League Navy during Operation Raging Justice...

Disclaimer: The poster is simply stating that this was the first type of plan that came to his mind in his natural attempt at trying to second-guess Harrington. Honor didn't want to kill anyone. And I always believed the old adage that you shouldn't back a snake into a corner, where his only recourse is to strike.

'Cause he's gonna.

When Honor said, I paraphrase, 'If we hammer them we hammer them hard." That didn't sound like the Salamander in that situation to me. Or maybe it did. But it didn't sound like Honor. IMO.

Unfortunately, in retrospect only, if this alternate course had been chosen instead, might even have made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the MAlign to program-in, as fatal a reply.

The plan that they came up with threw me a curve. I was surprised that Honor chose to "trap" Filareta. Intead of allowing the SLN to come in all fat, arrogant and happy, see the immense defenses then allowed to hyper out. But on the way out, the RMN could have used humor, and put on a magic show of traps and tricks - of materializing system pods, probes up their anuses err sinuses like proctologists err otolaryngologists and the dance of Apollo missiles pirouetting oh so closely around key ships in enemy fleets. But not pulling the trigger.

The RMN could have put on a mesmerizing show of tactics and technology in a serious yet humorous manner, getting the message across with humor and sleight of hand, but with the effect of having the enemy humorously running home with their proverbial tails tucked between their legs.

"Man, they had us dead to rights. Trap after trap they sprang on us. Yet they just let us go, without ever closing the door on our entire fleet - even though it was obvious, to us both!, that they so easily could have... at just about any ol' time."

They came.

They saw.

They bugged the phuck out!

Look at 'em run!

Then broadcast that on League HD.



Aside:
Honor knew she could have taken the fire. Shown that it wasn't going to get through. That's what she was trying to convey to Theisman. She could have "trusted" her technology and soaked up that fire.

More of a 'Let our next response not be out of vengeful spite, but out of a merciful reason.'

Honor knew she could have been more reasonable with her response. Had it not been for a natural reflexive tendency to react, anytime there's even a flinch during a Mexican standoff.

The trouble with that was, as was pointed out in A Rising Thunder was that the Mandarins, especially Malachi Abruzzi, would have spun it out as an example of their restraint in the face of the obvious folly of the Manticoran Ruling Elites' failure to recognise the hopelessness of their position & the Solarian League not wanting to inflict any unnecessary civilian deaths on the Manticorans. Certainly, after Filareta's Folly, (& after the GA had released the tactical recordings) Abruzzi spun it out that the GA had only fired after Filareta had scuttled his missile pods; (with some degree of success with the population of Old Earth).

It is the same as Damien Duenas who, even after the destruction of Dubroskaya's four battlecruisers still tried to game out the situation when any reasonable person would have seen the situation was beyond salvage. He could not conceive of any other situation & neither can the Mandarins.

cthia wrote:Speaking of the ART of being reasonable. In the RMN's anticipation and reception of the Solarian League Navy during Operation Raging Justice...

Disclaimer: The poster is simply stating that this was the first type of plan that came to his mind in his natural attempt at trying to second-guess Harrington. Honor didn't want to kill anyone. And I always believed the old adage that you shouldn't back a snake into a corner, where his only recourse is to strike.

'Cause he's gonna.

When Honor said, I paraphrase, 'If we hammer them we hammer them hard." That didn't sound like the Salamander in that situation to me. Or maybe it did. But it didn't sound like Honor. IMO.

Unfortunately, in retrospect only, if this alternate course had been chosen instead, might even have made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the MAlign to program-in, as fatal a reply.

The plan that they came up with threw me a curve. I was surprised that Honor chose to "trap" Filareta. Intead of allowing the SLN to come in all fat, arrogant and happy, see the immense defenses then allowed to hyper out. But on the way out, the RMN could have used humor, and put on a magic show of traps and tricks - of materializing system pods, probes up their anuses err sinuses like proctologists err otolaryngologists and the dance of Apollo missiles pirouetting oh so closely around key ships in enemy fleets. But not pulling the trigger.

The RMN could have put on a mesmerizing show of tactics and technology in a serious yet humorous manner, getting the message across with humor and sleight of hand, but with the effect of having the enemy humorously running home with their proverbial tails tucked between their legs.

"Man, they had us dead to rights. Trap after trap they sprang on us. Yet they just let us go, without ever closing the door on our entire fleet - even though it was obvious, to us both!, that they so easily could have... at just about any ol' time."

They came.

They saw.

They bugged the phuck out!

Look at 'em run!

Then broadcast that on League HD.



Aside:
Honor knew she could have taken the fire. Shown that it wasn't going to get through. That's what she was trying to convey to Theisman. She could have "trusted" her technology and soaked up that fire.

More of a 'Let our next response not be out of vengeful spite, but out of a merciful reason.'

Honor knew she could have been more reasonable with her response. Had it not been for a natural reflexive tendency to react, anytime there's even a flinch during a Mexican standoff.

Rincewind wrote:The trouble with that was, as was pointed out in A Rising Thunder was that the Mandarins, especially Malachi Abruzzi, would have spun it out as an example of their restraint in the face of the obvious folly of the Manticoran Ruling Elites' failure to recognise the hopelessness of their position & the Solarian League not wanting to inflict any unnecessary civilian deaths on the Manticorans. Certainly, after Filareta's Folly, (& after the GA had released the tactical recordings) Abruzzi spun it out that the GA had only fired after Filareta had scuttled his missile pods; (with some degree of success with the population of Old Earth).

It is the same as Damien Duenas who, even after the destruction of Dubroskaya's four battlecruisers still tried to game out the situation when any reasonable person would have seen the situation was beyond salvage. He could not conceive of any other situation & neither can the Mandarins.

Your synopsis is effectively the same intuitive response that should have reasonably been expected from the SLN given a reasonable insight of Solarian perception — even had the SL enjoyed "a successful surrendering of Filareta's fleet," that I indicated just a post or three upstream.

cthia wrote:Speaking of the ART of being reasonable. In the RMN's anticipation and reception of the Solarian League Navy during Operation Raging Justice...

Disclaimer: The poster is simply stating that this was the first type of plan that came to his mind in his natural attempt at trying to second-guess Harrington. Honor didn't want to kill anyone. And I always believed the old adage that you shouldn't back a snake into a corner, where his only recourse is to strike.

'Cause he's gonna.

When Honor said, I paraphrase, 'If we hammer them we hammer them hard." That didn't sound like the Salamander in that situation to me. Or maybe it did. But it didn't sound like Honor. IMO.

Unfortunately, in retrospect only, if this alternate course had been chosen instead, might even have made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the MAlign to program-in, as fatal a reply.

The plan that they came up with threw me a curve. I was surprised that Honor chose to "trap" Filareta. Intead of allowing the SLN to come in all fat, arrogant and happy, see the immense defenses then allowed to hyper out. But on the way out, the RMN could have used humor, and put on a magic show of traps and tricks - of materializing system pods, probes up their anuses err sinuses like proctologists err otolaryngologists and the dance of Apollo missiles pirouetting oh so closely around key ships in enemy fleets. But not pulling the trigger.

The RMN could have put on a mesmerizing show of tactics and technology in a serious yet humorous manner, getting the message across with humor and sleight of hand, but with the effect of having the enemy humorously running home with their proverbial tails tucked between their legs.

"Man, they had us dead to rights. Trap after trap they sprang on us. Yet they just let us go, without ever closing the door on our entire fleet - even though it was obvious, to us both!, that they so easily could have... at just about any ol' time."

They came.

They saw.

They bugged the phuck out!

Look at 'em run!

Then broadcast THAT on League HD.



Aside:
Honor knew she could have taken the fire. Shown that it wasn't going to get through. That's what she was trying to convey to Theisman. She could have "trusted" her technology and soaked up that fire.

More of a 'Let our next response not be out of vengeful spite, but out of a merciful reason.'

Honor knew she could have been more reasonable with her response. Had it not been for a natural reflexive tendency to react, anytime there's even a flinch during a Mexican standoff.

Honor really could have hammed it up on this one. She could have landed an RD right outside Filareta ship's observation window...

"Smile mutha phucka. Say—"

"SCHIT!"

"I was gonna say CHEESE but SCHIT will do just fine."

And you're not even supposed to be able to do that.

The RMN could have chosen to have the SLN trip the light fantastic on the way in. Give them the biggest fireworks display of tactics and technology in Case Zulu history. The Manticorans could really have had the Solarians talking about their Home system for eons to come as if it were a mythological creature. Much as the Salamander became a three-meter tall boogeyman in the nightmares of Solarian kids, adults and officers alike.

Frighten the schit out of 'em then send them home to fret all about it, building you up.

Good Press doesn't get any better than that!

"Trust me, the Manticoran Home system is not where you wanna go Dickin' around, Dick. I was there. Trusssst me, the only reason I'm still alive today to talk about it now is because they were in a merciful mood at the time."

"They just let you all go. Just like that?"

"Yea, they did. Maybe the Manticore had already eaten that day and his belly was still full, I don't know. But if you return and the beast is hungry this time, then your goose will be plucked and cooked and you're as good as eaten. I hear Manticores like goose."

"I'm no goose."

"No sweat, they like Duck à l'orange too."

Aside:
Trapping (even hammering) Filareta had to have mainly come from Honor's advisors. I have to believe that if Honor was left to her own devices, as she normally is. The plan would have been quite different.

The largest, most modern SLN fleet in the last couple of hundred is inbound to crush Manticore and you are suggesting that they should be convinced to turn around and run by a demonstration of technical and tactical brilliance?

This is Sollys that Manticore and Haven are dealing with here. They KNOW they are coming, what's comming and what they intend to do when they get there. Which, if you have forgotten, is to crush the RMN, take the Manticore Home System and turn the Wormhole Junction (and every habitable or usefull planet in the "Manticorian Empire") into a giant cash cow for OFS and the SL bureaucracy.

Manticore KNOWS that they can't defeat the SLN even with the compleat cooperation of Haven if the SL has the time to recover from any of what has happened including the broadcast information that there is this "Alignment" that has been manipulating everybody for a long time.

So, do you "educate" the officers and crews of 300+ SLN SDs plus screen to then send them home and be avaiable to come back at you again or just be waiting for you when you HAVE to take some of this war to the SL? Or do you eliminate the threat and remove said 300+ SDs and screen (and transports full of SLN Marines intended to garrison the Manticore Home System etc) and deny the SL the ships and people -with enhanced experience and tactical knowledge?

The result- even with the flushing of the Cataphracts using the nano-virus and ending up killing tens of thousands of SLN spacers- does exactly that. You just took a major part of their fleet with their best ships and spacers and LOST THEM to Manticore. That really does make it easier for the SL to break up, you have removed a lot of ships and people who helped stretch out that time frame in which the SL does fragment.

You CAN'T let those ships go home. You would end up facing them again and then you would HAVE to kill all of them because you would be unlikely to get them into such a onesided exchange position EVER again.

Brigade XO wrote:The largest, most modern SLN fleet in the last couple of hundred is inbound to crush Manticore and you are suggesting that they should be convinced to turn around and run by a demonstration of technical and tactical brilliance?

This is Sollys that Manticore and Haven are dealing with here. They KNOW they are coming, what's comming and what they intend to do when they get there. Which, if you have forgotten, is to crush the RMN, take the Manticore Home System and turn the Wormhole Junction (and every habitable or usefull planet in the "Manticorian Empire") into a giant cash cow for OFS and the SL bureaucracy.

Manticore KNOWS that they can't defeat the SLN even with the compleat cooperation of Haven if the SL has the time to recover from any of what has happened including the broadcast information that there is this "Alignment" that has been manipulating everybody for a long time.

So, do you "educate" the officers and crews of 300+ SLN SDs plus screen to then send them home and be avaiable to come back at you again or just be waiting for you when you HAVE to take some of this war to the SL? Or do you eliminate the threat and remove said 300+ SDs and screen (and transports full of SLN Marines intended to garrison the Manticore Home System etc) and deny the SL the ships and people -with enhanced experience and tactical knowledge?

The result- even with the flushing of the Cataphracts using the nano-virus and ending up killing tens of thousands of SLN spacers- does exactly that. You just took a major part of their fleet with their best ships and spacers and LOST THEM to Manticore. That really does make it easier for the SL to break up, you have removed a lot of ships and people who helped stretch out that time frame in which the SL does fragment.

You CAN'T let those ships go home. You would end up facing them again and then you would HAVE to kill all of them because you would be unlikely to get them into such a onesided exchange position EVER again.

Why can't you let those ships go home? Remember, you didn't even want them to come. At the diplomatic table you were trying to talk your way out of them being sent. You then sent them a note giving them one last time to reconsider sending them and to send the recall order. So why exactly is it that the RMN can't choose to divert them anyway (in an even stronger diplomatic fashion by non-diplomatic means), when they arrive? With one last final diplomatic attempt to get them to see reason, by showing them what reason will avoid? Without backing them into a corner.

So they get away with their entire fleet. And on top of it we allow them to use their magic lamp and its three wishes.
1. We are allowed to hyper out.
2. We are allowed to keep our ships.
3. We are allowed to be repatriated.
4. We double our ships.

Oops, they got away with a serious extra wish. So what? Is the GA shaking in their boots?

cthia wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The largest, most modern SLN fleet in the last couple of hundred is inbound to crush Manticore and you are suggesting that they should be convinced to turn around and run by a demonstration of technical and tactical brilliance?

This is Sollys that Manticore and Haven are dealing with here. They KNOW they are coming, what's comming and what they intend to do when they get there. Which, if you have forgotten, is to crush the RMN, take the Manticore Home System and turn the Wormhole Junction (and every habitable or usefull planet in the "Manticorian Empire") into a giant cash cow for OFS and the SL bureaucracy.

Manticore KNOWS that they can't defeat the SLN even with the compleat cooperation of Haven if the SL has the time to recover from any of what has happened including the broadcast information that there is this "Alignment" that has been manipulating everybody for a long time.

So, do you "educate" the officers and crews of 300+ SLN SDs plus screen to then send them home and be avaiable to come back at you again or just be waiting for you when you HAVE to take some of this war to the SL? Or do you eliminate the threat and remove said 300+ SDs and screen (and transports full of SLN Marines intended to garrison the Manticore Home System etc) and deny the SL the ships and people -with enhanced experience and tactical knowledge?

The result- even with the flushing of the Cataphracts using the nano-virus and ending up killing tens of thousands of SLN spacers- does exactly that. You just took a major part of their fleet with their best ships and spacers and LOST THEM to Manticore. That really does make it easier for the SL to break up, you have removed a lot of ships and people who helped stretch out that time frame in which the SL does fragment.

You CAN'T let those ships go home. You would end up facing them again and then you would HAVE to kill all of them because you would be unlikely to get them into such a onesided exchange position EVER again.

Why can't you let those ships go home? Remember, you didn't even want them to come. At the diplomatic table you were trying to talk your way out of them being sent. You then sent them a note giving them one last time to reconsider sending them and to send the recall order. So why exactly is it that the RMN can't choose to divert them anyway (in an even stronger diplomatic fashion by non-diplomatic means), when they arrive? With one last final diplomatic attempt to get them to see reason, by showing them what reason will avoid? Without backing them into a corner.

So they get away with their entire fleet. And on top of it we allow them to use their magic lamp and its three wishes.
1. We are allowed to hyper out.
2. We are allowed to keep our ships.
3. We are allowed to be repatriated.
4. We double our ships.

Oops, they got away with a serious extra wish. So what? Is the GA shaking in their boots?

Because, as said in a history book I read on World War II, referring to Imperial Japan and the United States (as closely as I can recall the quote, and I don't remember the title or the author), the man who is willing to talk, but is even more willing to go to war, has the advantage over the man who wants only to talk.

I suggest reviewing my post Re: Long term consequences of the League's collapse regarding the origins of the Harrington Doctrine, to get an idea of Honor's (and Manticore's by extension) thoughts regarding how to deal with adversaries diplomatically (in both peaceful and gunboat ways) as well as "the continuation of diplomacy by non-diplomatic means".

The immediate consequences of letting those ships go is that the League Mandarins realize that they can't immediately win, but they can do the diplomatic dance and "play for time". (And David already responded on that, see his reply to my reply to your post up thread Re: The ART of being reasonable.) And in-Honorverse, White Haven just as part of (please reread the entire chapter, it really lays out Manticore's options if it wants to survive at all, plus what it's leaders are thinking of) said:

Storm From the Shadows, Chapter 44 wrote:"Assuming we do have the sort of technological edge BuWeaps is currently projecting, we'll rip the ass off of any Solarian force we run into, if you'll pardon my language, at least in the immediate future. Eventually, though, assuming they have the stomach for the kinds of casualty totals we can inflict on them, they'll suck up whatever we can do to them, develop the same weapons, and run right over us. Either that, or we'll hit some sort of 'negotiated peace,' and they'll go home and pull a Theisman on us. We'll wake up one fine morning and discover that the Solarian League Navy has a wall of battle just like ours only lots, lots bigger . . . at which point, we're toast."

Italics are the author's boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

To put it in personal terms (instead of on the scale of a star nation), if you have the capability you have the option of requiring a criminal that is attempting to rob and kill you and all of your family to surrender, die attempting to rob and kill you, or let him go away for a while. While he's away, he's going to develop the same capability you used to stop him, then come back with all of his gang/organization, and roll right over (kill, because he recognizes it's either kill or be killed, and then rob) you and all of your family.

Knowing all that, what would you choose to do faced with the criminal initially attempting to rob and kill you and your family, if you have the capability to require to surrender to you or die in his attempt to rob and kill you and your family?

Vince already said why-
The Mandarins will take any opening to play for time and continue to "game the system" and given enough time the SL will crush the GA. Harrington (and probably most of the GA leadership confronting Filerta would have preferred -in fact they set it up with the "trap" into which the Admiral continued to push into- for the entire fleet to have surrendered with no loss of life. Filerta realized he was in deep shit and could not avoid engagement and that he was complely vunerable. Except for the nano-virus and the go-to-hell launch plus the bomb wiping out the fleet command staff, it is probable that he would have surendered the fleet. He's toast and he knows it and there is NOTHING he can do about it except 1) attack and pray- which he didn't appear to be dumb enough to try and 2) surrender and keep his command alive. The Alignment arranged it so he died and the fleet did an almost blind mass launch then engagement by individual ships to which Harrington and the GA HAD to respond.
Takeing that fleet or destroying it were the only two options. Filerta was warned- by Harrington on his way in- and by anybody's standards, crossing the hyper limit into the Manticore System was a clear act of way to which there was only one responce in the face of 300 SD inbound (unless you wanted to surrender the system which was NOT going to happen) so my take on it is that Filerta would have surrendered but the Alignment - knowing he was smarter than Byng and Crandall- orgainzed it so that he could not.
Again- taking that 300 SD + support and train off the board had become the only thing to do and make sure the GA did not have to face any of it again under less favorable combat circumstances. Would that - capturing the fleet intact- have pursuaded the Mandarins to change their thinking? Given what we see of them, probably not. But Kingsford would have seen it for what it was and that might have helped going forward. At this point, the Mandarins AND Kingsford have had their noses rubbed in it and Kingsford at least will have a better appreication of just how badly outclassed the SLN is if he didn't actually have a clue before. The GA CAN'T allow the SL to have time even if the GA doesn't want to strike into the SL and elimiating as much of the SLN fleet as possible is about the only way to do that.
There is also the impact this SLN defeat will have on the leadership of the SL Member Systems and the SDFs of those systems (other perhaps, than the RF systems) in evaluating what is going on and is likely to go on should they be called on to go into an actual war with the GA. The door is clearly open to talk with the GA (or at least Manticore) and come to individual arrangements and that will help fragment the SL.

Brigade XO wrote:Vince already said why-
The Mandarins will take any opening to play for time and continue to "game the system" and given enough time the SL will crush the GA. Harrington (and probably most of the GA leadership confronting Filerta would have preferred -in fact they set it up with the "trap" into which the Admiral continued to push into- for the entire fleet to have surrendered with no loss of life. Filerta realized he was in deep shit and could not avoid engagement and that he was complely vunerable. Except for the nano-virus and the go-to-hell launch plus the bomb wiping out the fleet command staff, it is probable that he would have surendered the fleet. He's toast and he knows it and there is NOTHING he can do about it except 1) attack and pray- which he didn't appear to be dumb enough to try and 2) surrender and keep his command alive. The Alignment arranged it so he died and the fleet did an almost blind mass launch then engagement by individual ships to which Harrington and the GA HAD to respond.
Takeing that fleet or destroying it were the only two options. Filerta was warned- by Harrington on his way in- and by anybody's standards, crossing the hyper limit into the Manticore System was a clear act of way to which there was only one responce in the face of 300 SD inbound (unless you wanted to surrender the system which was NOT going to happen) so my take on it is that Filerta would have surrendered but the Alignment - knowing he was smarter than Byng and Crandall- orgainzed it so that he could not.
Again- taking that 300 SD + support and train off the board had become the only thing to do and make sure the GA did not have to face any of it again under less favorable combat circumstances. Would that - capturing the fleet intact- have pursuaded the Mandarins to change their thinking? Given what we see of them, probably not. But Kingsford would have seen it for what it was and that might have helped going forward. At this point, the Mandarins AND Kingsford have had their noses rubbed in it and Kingsford at least will have a better appreication of just how badly outclassed the SLN is if he didn't actually have a clue before. The GA CAN'T allow the SL to have time even if the GA doesn't want to strike into the SL and elimiating as much of the SLN fleet as possible is about the only way to do that.
There is also the impact this SLN defeat will have on the leadership of the SL Member Systems and the SDFs of those systems (other perhaps, than the RF systems) in evaluating what is going on and is likely to go on should they be called on to go into an actual war with the GA. The door is clearly open to talk with the GA (or at least Manticore) and come to individual arrangements and that will help fragment the SL.

Like a puppy, rubbing the SLN's and the League's nose in its mistake doesn't work right away. You have to do it repeatedly before the lesson sinks in. Let's see how many times the SLN's and League's nose has been directly and forcefully (not OFS catspaws, not warning shots--but directly against League forces involving loss of life and ships) rubbed in their mistake by first Manticore and then the Grand Alliance (although the news of all of the incidents may not have made it to old Terra).

As of A Rising Thunder (know to the Mandarins):

1) Byng's forces at 2nd New Tuscany
2) Crandall's forces at Spindle
3) Filareta's forces at Manticore

Plus Tsang's forces at Beowulf were forced to withdraw (in A Rising Thunder) without shots fired as part of Filareta's loss (known to the Mandarins)

As of Shadow of Freedom: (the Mandarins may or may not know about these incidents yet at the current time, but they definitely didn't know about it as of the end of A Rising Thunder)

4) The SLN and Solarian Gendarme forces at Saltash
5) The SLN and Solarian OFS (Yucel) forces at Mobius

Plus the surrender of SLN (Thurgood) and OFS forces at Meyers without shots fired (definitely not known to the Mandarins as of the end of Cauldron of Ghosts)

And the SLN and League are starting to very seriously considering moving against Beowulf at the end of A Rising Thunder despite knowing that the Republic of Haven engaged the SLN forces with Manticore (Grayson is probably not even on the Mandarins' radar).

Apparently the lesson still hasn't sunk in enough, despite how many times their noses have been rubbed in their mistakes directly and forcefully by Manticore and the Grand Alliance.

Brigade XO wrote:The result- even with the flushing of the Cataphracts using the nano-virus and ending up killing tens of thousands of SLN spacers- does exactly that. You just took a major part of their fleet with their best ships and spacers and LOST THEM to Manticore. That really does make it easier for the SL to break up, you have removed a lot of ships and people who helped stretch out that time frame in which the SL does fragment.

You CAN'T let those ships go home. You would end up facing them again and then you would HAVE to kill all of them because you would be unlikely to get them into such a onesided exchange position EVER again.

Yeah, short of the nano attack what they did is probably the best thing they could have done.

To capture hundreds of wallers without a shot fired would make it abundantly clear that Manticore is a system you don't want to mess with and nobody gets hurt in the process. Perfect.

cthia wrote:Aside:
Honor knew she could have taken the fire. Shown that it wasn't going to get through. That's what she was trying to convey to Theisman. She could have "trusted" her technology and soaked up that fire. [/i]

Honor didn't know anything until after it was all over. Recall that when Honor was fretting that "well look how light our losses were! I could have just taken the fire and kept trying to talk" and Theisman tore her a new one for that and (forgive the paraphrase, I dont have the book handy to exact quote) "you should be broken if you suggest doing something that stupid. You were the one in the hotseat and you had to make a decision with the missiles flying." Theisman also mentioned something about it being criminal if she'd done something so stupid as to take the fire without returning fire.

NOW however, they do know that if the Mandarins somehow scraped up another four or five hundred superdreadnoughts with more pods from "Technodyne", that they could soak the fire and laugh before shooing the plucky amateur off the field before they get hurt. They didn't know anything of that sort prior to Filareta's adjusted ops officer doing anything.