SPOILERS==Shadow of Victory Comments, Queries and Opinions

I think RFC can finish the storyline with the next book. All of the loose ends won't be tied up. But that can be handled later with anthologies like some of you guys thought that the material in SoV should have been done.

I will speculate further and say that Darius will be found and the factor exposed. I know that under normal circumstances, Darius would be very hard to find. But frankly all it would really take would be a break like someone left behind who should have gone with Houdini or perhaps a stray computer or whatever.

We do know that David intends the next book to be it. Until it turns out otherwise, that is what I'm going to presume will happen.

Don

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McGuiness wrote:It's also nice to see that he doesn't have a bloodthirsty streak, although personally I'd like to see every Frontier Security ship and its crew blasted into their constituent atoms based on the war crimes they commit regularly in the Verge.

I gather that encouraging surrender is official GA policy, and Captain Tremaine says twice, once to the Sollies and once to his crew that he doesn't want to kill off Sollies in "job lots."

OFS seem to subscribe heavily to the theory "it's only illegal if you get caught"; so for the most part they literally haven't even thought what they're doing could be construed warcrimes, because they've never been in a position where anyone could call them on it. Even more importantly, even if someone did call OFS out on warcrimes... who had the power to actually enforce a tribunal? After all, the League is the galaxy six-hundred pound gorilla, and nobody wanted to irritate it.

The few officers who go there that have a clue, basically ended up like our quasi-favourite Solarian Daud, where if they speak up (because they have a functional brain), they get vilified and unclean to even breathe nearby, lest their contamination spread and draw more attention from their superiors.

n7axw wrote:I think RFC can finish the storyline with the next book. All of the loose ends won't be tied up. But that can be handled later with anthologies like some of you guys thought that the material in SoV should have been done.

I will speculate further and say that Darius will be found and the factor exposed. I know that under normal circumstances, Darius would be very hard to find. But frankly all it would really take would be a break like someone left behind who should have gone with Houdini or perhaps a stray computer or whatever.

We do know that David intends the next book to be it. Until it turns out otherwise, that is what I'm going to presume will happen.

Don

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The thing is the Alliance has barely begun major offensive actions against the behemoth that is the SL. Outside the "Talbot Sector" and various junction points the SL has hardly been troubled by any GA incursions into the vastness of their territory. Unless the SL is supposed to fold like a cheap deck of cards I can't see the "SL War" being only addressed in a single book as merely part of a larger story; surely it requires a book onto its own. And then there is Beowulf, Darius and other open threads going back many books ago. There is a lot to cover even if we don't want everything tied up in a nice bow. The key word here is a satisfactory end; after thirty years it just has to be that way regardless of waning patience.

As an alternative amusing possibility: The link to Darius is a bit longer than most people have been assuming. The peculiar link is gravitically unstable; if you pound on it the right way, it falls apart.

The defecting gravitic physicist supplies the pound details, as originally developed by the greatest gravitic physicist in the history of the universe, Joseph Buckley.

Having determined where the second link goes, the peculiar point is pounded upon, severing the link between Darius and known space. As Darius is in the Andromeda galaxy, there will be no contact with them for a while yet. the followers of Detweiler get to develop in their own way without bothering people. The Renaissance folks realize that they had better change strategy completely, do so, and support Haven and Manticore.

npadln wrote:The thing is the Alliance has barely begun major offensive actions against the behemoth that is the SL. Outside the "Talbot Sector" and various junction points the SL has hardly been troubled by any GA incursions into the vastness of their territory. Unless the SL is supposed to fold like a cheap deck of cards I can't see the "SL War" being only addressed in a single book as merely part of a larger story; surely it requires a book onto its own. And then there is Beowulf, Darius and other open threads going back many books ago. There is a lot to cover even if we don't want everything tied up in a nice bow. The key word here is a satisfactory end; after thirty years it just has to be that way regardless of waning patience.

The Grand Alliance is not going to fight a full-scale war against the Solarian League. The SL will be too busy dealing with all of the systems that secede. The remnants of the SL will depose the mandarins for their obvious failures, and cut a deal.

dscott8 wrote:

npadln wrote:The thing is the Alliance has barely begun major offensive actions against the behemoth that is the SL. Outside the "Talbot Sector" and various junction points the SL has hardly been troubled by any GA incursions into the vastness of their territory. Unless the SL is supposed to fold like a cheap deck of cards I can't see the "SL War" being only addressed in a single book as merely part of a larger story; surely it requires a book onto its own. And then there is Beowulf, Darius and other open threads going back many books ago. There is a lot to cover even if we don't want everything tied up in a nice bow. The key word here is a satisfactory end; after thirty years it just has to be that way regardless of waning patience.

The Grand Alliance is not going to fight a full-scale war against the Solarian League. The SL will be too busy dealing with all of the systems that secede. The remnants of the SL will depose the mandarins for their obvious failures, and cut a deal.

Who said anything about a full scale war? Remember, Manticore doesn't have the luxury of hoping for that scenario you are describing. At the very least they have to expand and intensify militarily pressure to speed up that process if it is to come to pass in a timely manner. Time is not their ally.

David has explicitly said the Simoes does not know anything about the twins or Darius. So no, not going to get there that way.

phillies wrote:As an alternative amusing possibility: The link to Darius is a bit longer than most people have been assuming. The peculiar link is gravitically unstable; if you pound on it the right way, it falls apart.

The defecting gravitic physicist supplies the pound details, as originally developed by the greatest gravitic physicist in the history of the universe, Joseph Buckley.

Having determined where the second link goes, the peculiar point is pounded upon, severing the link between Darius and known space. As Darius is in the Andromeda galaxy, there will be no contact with them for a while yet. the followers of Detweiler get to develop in their own way without bothering people. The Renaissance folks realize that they had better change strategy completely, do so, and support Haven and Manticore.

As kzt said, Simöes doesn't know about the Twins. Even if he did, it would be really strange if the Felix-Darius link went through another cutout like The Twins. With 200 or so known hyper bridges, there's only one like that. Finding a second coming off the same junction. Not likely.

kzt wrote:Slavers don't make it to Darius. They transfer their passengers at some point to a vessel that goes to Darius. And it's been shown pretty clearly that the vast majority of MA people are hard enough core that they will kill themselves if threatened with capture. And you you can't follow a streak drive ship in hyper.

So stumble upon a transfer in progress. Some dont want to die as already shown in SoV.
Stuff always goes wrong.

dscott8 wrote:

npadln wrote:<br abp="703">The thing is the Alliance has barely begun major offensive actions against the behemoth that is the SL. Outside the "Talbot Sector" and various junction points the SL has hardly been troubled by any GA incursions into the vastness of their territory. Unless the SL is supposed to fold like a cheap deck of cards I can't see the "SL War" being only addressed in a single book as merely part of a larger story; surely it requires a book onto its own. And then there is Beowulf, Darius and other open threads going back many books ago. There is a lot to cover even if we don't want everything tied up in a nice bow. The key word here is a satisfactory end; after thirty years it just has to be that way regardless of waning patience.

<br abp="704"><br abp="705">The Grand Alliance is not going to fight a full-scale war against the Solarian League. The SL will be too busy dealing with all of the systems that secede. The remnants of the SL will depose the mandarins for their obvious failures, and cut a deal.

JohnRoth wrote:There's a basic problem with taking out Darius and leaving the RF still covered. It's called Felix, and Felix has a connection to Darius.

If they take out Darius, then they've got a direct line to Felix. The decision tree takes two paths: either Mannerheim plugs the bridge on their end, or it doesn't. If it does, it raises the question of who's doing it, which in turn leads to the conclusion that Darius isn't the end of the line.

If they don't, then the GA discovers Felix and finds Mannerheim 10 ly away, and finds a small, permanent Mannerheim colony on the unnamed barely-habitable planet.

The conclusion: finding Darius is the same as finding Mannerheim, which in turn fingers the RF.

I dont remember, is Felix Beta really inhabited atm?

Its not so clear cut IMO.
At worst the Alliance discovers that Mannerheim knew about an Mesan / Manpowe / Jessyk (or whatever the cover of the day might be) operation going on next door.
You can blame them for not telling anyone but why should they?
Its a huge stretch from 'yeah well, they didnt betray their strange neighbour' to 'oh gosh, their is a multiple system post solarian conspiracy going on'

They even have an explanation for not developing the junction, they were still in the process of getting legal ownership for the system.

And even if they discover the Mannerheim part of the RF, how many RF members on Mannerheim even know about the rest of the RF? Its very likely that the secret would die with the handful who know whats going on.

Or the Alignment solution: Mannerheim pulls out of Felix before the Manties transit from Darius and nuke the colony before they leave.

npadln wrote:<br abp="703">The thing is the Alliance has barely begun major offensive actions against the behemoth that is the SL. Outside the "Talbot Sector" and various junction points the SL has hardly been troubled by any GA incursions into the vastness of their territory. Unless the SL is supposed to fold like a cheap deck of cards I can't see the "SL War" being only addressed in a single book as merely part of a larger story; surely it requires a book onto its own. And then there is Beowulf, Darius and other open threads going back many books ago. There is a lot to cover even if we don't want everything tied up in a nice bow. The key word here is a satisfactory end; after thirty years it just has to be that way regardless of waning patience.

dscott8 wrote:
<br abp="704"><br abp="705">The Grand Alliance is not going to fight a full-scale war against the Solarian League. The SL will be too busy dealing with all of the systems that secede. The remnants of the SL will depose the mandarins for their obvious failures, and cut a deal.

kzt wrote:Slavers don't make it to Darius. They transfer their passengers at some point to a vessel that goes to Darius. And it's been shown pretty clearly that the vast majority of MA people are hard enough core that they will kill themselves if threatened with capture. And you you can't follow a streak drive ship in hyper.

Star Knight wrote: So stumble upon a transfer in progress. Some dont want to die as already shown in SoV.
Stuff always goes wrong.

JohnRoth wrote:There's a basic problem with taking out Darius and leaving the RF still covered. It's called Felix, and Felix has a connection to Darius.

If they take out Darius, then they've got a direct line to Felix. The decision tree takes two paths: either Mannerheim plugs the bridge on their end, or it doesn't. If it does, it raises the question of who's doing it, which in turn leads to the conclusion that Darius isn't the end of the line.

If they don't, then the GA discovers Felix and finds Mannerheim 10 ly away, and finds a small, permanent Mannerheim colony on the unnamed barely-habitable planet.

The conclusion: finding Darius is the same as finding Mannerheim, which in turn fingers the RF.

I dont remember, is Felix Beta really inhabited atm?

Its not so clear cut IMO.
At worst the Alliance discovers that Mannerheim knew about an Mesan / Manpowe / Jessyk (or whatever the cover of the day might be) operation going on next door.
You can blame them for not telling anyone but why should they?
Its a huge stretch from 'yeah well, they didnt betray their strange neighbour' to 'oh gosh, their is a multiple system post solarian conspiracy going on'

They even have an explanation for not developing the junction, they were still in the process of getting legal ownership for the system.

And even if they discover the Mannerheim part of the RF, how many RF members on Mannerheim even know about the rest of the RF? Its very likely that the secret would die with the handful who know whats going on.

Or the Alignment solution: Mannerheim pulls out of Felix before the Manties transit from Darius and nuke the colony before they leave.

There are a couple of problems with that. First, if Mannerheim pulls out of Felix, leaving a gently glowing crater on Felix Beta, what's the obvious conclusion from the crater? Right. There's someone that doesn't want you to know something.

Second, if they leave the junction to be explored, the GA will find The Twins, and will then discover that it links to Torch.

Of course, claiming that it was a Manpower/Jessyk operation might work, although with the link to Darius I have this suspicion that claiming that might be met with a bit of rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically.