Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

Meant to ask this but it slipped my mind.

Does the Eridani Edict apply to moon bases as well? I seem to recall Blackbird being targeted on the way out but I'm not sure if civilians were involved. Even so, a moon base should be a legitimate military target, no?

Yet, I don't ever recall a moon base being targeted as part of infrastructure drive-bys. Or are moon bases simply obsolete defenses?

cthia wrote:Meant to ask this but it slipped my mind.

Does the Eridani Edict apply to moon bases as well? I seem to recall Blackbird being targeted on the way out but I'm not sure if civilians were involved. Even so, a moon base should be a legitimate military target, no?

Yet, I don't ever recall a moon base being targeted as part of infrastructure drive-bys. Or are moon bases simply obsolete defenses?

I'm going to guess that moon bases are only rarely used these days in a military capacity. Most of them will likely be mining operations of some sort; I'm pretty sure that noone in their right mind wants to place weaponry on a moon that is able to bombard the planet it's orbiting (Not that that hasn't happened regardless, see Hades), and there's not much benefit to doing so. In fact, the drawbacks of using a moon base (like, for example, the moon blocking a whole bunch of firing arcs) far outweigh the benefits (which I have a hard time finding).

Furthermore, the Eridani Edict exists because a kinetic strike on a planet with an atmosphere is about as devastating as nuclear bombardment; When the atmosphere is removed, most of the collateral damage that a kinetic strike can cause disappears entirely.

The E wrote:

cthia wrote:Meant to ask this but it slipped my mind.

Does the Eridani Edict apply to moon bases as well? I seem to recall Blackbird being targeted on the way out but I'm not sure if civilians were involved. Even so, a moon base should be a legitimate military target, no?

Yet, I don't ever recall a moon base being targeted as part of infrastructure drive-bys. Or are moon bases simply obsolete defenses?

I'm going to guess that moon bases are only rarely used these days in a military capacity. Most of them will likely be mining operations of some sort; I'm pretty sure that noone in their right mind wants to place weaponry on a moon that is able to bombard the planet it's orbiting (Not that that hasn't happened regardless, see Hades), and there's not much benefit to doing so. In fact, the drawbacks of using a moon base (like, for example, the moon blocking a whole bunch of firing arcs) far outweigh the benefits (which I have a hard time finding).

Furthermore, the Eridani Edict exists because a kinetic strike on a planet with an atmosphere is about as devastating as nuclear bombardment; When the atmosphere is removed, most of the collateral damage that a kinetic strike can cause disappears entirely.

Good points! Several of those points spurred this post.

The thread's concept of a surgical strike would be child's play on a moon where there is no atmosphere and where a population of civilian workers may be amassed. (I also thought that a desired component of the Edict was to protect innocent ground-based civilian lives in an era where devastating kinetic/nuclear bombardments aren't necessary because if you control the orbitals you win. And because the lion's share of space battles happen in space anyway.)

In which case it wouldn't necessarily expose a moon to kinetic strikes simply because it has no atmosphere and simply because it significantly reduces the measure of civilian lives, because the Edict's clause of controlling a moon's orbitals as well would nix the need to bombard. I'm not sure if the Edict covers moon bases because Honor did ask Uriel's commander, Captain Willams, to surrender after she entered orbit. If moon bases are indeed protected by the Edict, then...

It further highlights the possibility of a completely new paradigm and strategy of the MA's unprecedented capability of ushering in a new age of completely surgical and precision planetary strikes. (CSAPPS)

Personally, I never understood the modern need for moon bases. I imagine monstrous sized missiles can be emplaced on a moon but enemy ships will just steer clear as storyline always had them do. I suppose that a moon can be used by the host planet in a pincering maneuver to pin forces against it and an attacking fleet.

In the case of Uriel, I expected Honor's forces to be fired on once they reached the far side trying to force Theisman out - who was using the moon as a tactical shield. Which brings back my niece's point long ago as to why the RMN didn't vector probes around Uriel to "see" Theisman.

As far as the danger of accidentally targeting your own planet is concerned, missiles can always be stationed on the far side to catch enemy forces unaware when the Home System's forces use the moon as a shield, as Theisman did.

At any rate, in modern day Honorverse, I never really saw the need of moon bases. Forces always steered clear and they were never an integral part of any battle, except to ensure that the enemy had to steer clear. Or perhaps the moon's forces protected certain mining operations.

What a moon could be used for are LAC bases. Shoals of LACs launched from the surface of a moon can be a very nasty surprise to an attacking fleet.

cthia wrote:What a moon could be used for are LAC bases. Shoals of LACs launched from the surface of a moon can be a very nasty surprise to an attacking fleet.

Maybe - but docking them to a good sized moon would be a lot more awkward than from a station, orbital fort, or CLAC.

The LACs would have to use reaction thrusters to fight the moon's gravity until they reached at least 15 km high (assuming they were willing to use their wedge tangential to the moon - it's be more like 30 km high if they wanted to accelerate straight outwards) -- That's a lot of reaction mass that you wouldn't need to waste if pushing clear from a station.

I guess you could have a launch tunnel with grav drivers to throw the LAC clear - but its's a big expensive operation to toss a ship that masses as much as the biggest WWII heavy cruisers (Des Moines-class, 21,000 tons full load)! And you'd have to wait for the proceeding LAC to get at least 30 km away before launching the next one down a given launch tunnel or you risk a wedge to wedge contact that would vaporize both. So launching a few dozen LACs either takes much longer than from a station where they can disperse in all directions to get clearance, or requires an inordinate number of dispersed launch tubes.


There's a reason nothing bigger than a large shuttle actually lands on major planetary bodies in the Honorverse...

cthia wrote:Meant to ask this but it slipped my mind.

Does the Eridani Edict apply to moon bases as well? I seem to recall Blackbird being targeted on the way out but I'm not sure if civilians were involved. Even so, a moon base should be a legitimate military target, no?

Yet, I don't ever recall a moon base being targeted as part of infrastructure drive-bys. Or are moon bases simply obsolete defenses?

If it's a purely military base then IMO the Edict shouldn't apply any more than it does to am orbital fort.

But even if the base is a most civilian enterprise most of them would be no bigger that some of the space stations we've seen -- and those aren't covered by the Edict. So I wouldn't be surprised if a moon colony of similar size was also outside the scope of the Edict. Now if there was a true city on the moon? Maybe that would be different - but we don't have the actual text of the treaty which we'd need to know for sure.

And of course even if you could point out that technically you didn't violate any letter of the Edict there's always a risk that the people enforcing it disagree. And you can't exactly go to binding arbitration over this - if a fleet shows up in your system saying they're enforcing the Edict then unless your Military is big enough to drive them off you don't really have any recourse.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:What a moon could be used for are LAC bases. Shoals of LACs launched from the surface of a moon can be a very nasty surprise to an attacking fleet.

Maybe - but docking them to a good sized moon would be a lot more awkward than from a station, orbital fort, or CLAC.

The LACs would have to use reaction thrusters to fight the moon's gravity until they reached at least 15 km high (assuming they were willing to use their wedge tangential to the moon - it's be more like 30 km high if they wanted to accelerate straight outwards) -- That's a lot of reaction mass that you wouldn't need to waste if pushing clear from a station.

I guess you could have a launch tunnel with grav drivers to throw the LAC clear - but its's a big expensive operation to toss a ship that masses as much as the biggest WWII heavy cruisers (Des Moines-class, 21,000 tons full load)! And you'd have to wait for the proceeding LAC to get at least 30 km away before launching the next one down a given launch tunnel or you risk a wedge to wedge contact that would vaporize both. So launching a few dozen LACs either takes much longer than from a station where they can disperse in all directions to get clearance, or requires an inordinate number of dispersed launch tubes.


There's a reason nothing bigger than a large shuttle actually lands on major planetary bodies in the Honorverse...

I really didn't see that much of a problem for Honorverse tech, the will to do it and the much lower gravity of a moon. Besides, you, SWM and I had this conversation before and I thought it was agreed that it is doable, well at least quite plausible anyway.

We even discussed the strategic uses of a moon base in the role of planetary defense. But we didn't discuss it in the light of a moonbase being exempt from Edict coverage. And a point I didn't bring up in that light then, the missiles on a moon base, though longer legged would be vulnerable to ballistic launches with Honorverse supercomputer targeting, no?

But if LACs aren't doable then I really don't see any usefulness for present day moon bases for planetary defense except for the GA who can launch really long-legged Apollo system defense missiles, especially if they can be handed off.

Which cues another desire, that the next advancement of Apollo missiles is the capability of being handed off. Per my limited understanding of the tech. shrugs and more shrugs


Aside:

ACC TOURNAMENT ACTION!!!

cthia wrote:But if LACs aren't doable then I really don't see any usefulness for present day moon bases for planetary defense except for the GA who can launch really long-legged Apollo system defense missiles, especially if they can be handed off.

Which cues another desire, that the next advancement of Apollo missiles is the capability of being handed off. Per my limited understanding of the tech. shrugs and more shrugs

We know from RFC's posts that even current Apollo can be handed off within the same squadron because his post (saved in the Pearls) about keyhole platform survivability talks about how control of an Apollo salvo, launched from multiple podnaughts, will be passed from ship to ship to allow different Keyhole II's to take turns transmitting (to make it much harder to track them by their emissions)

With some pre-coordination they could probably be handed off to a Keyhole II equipped ship that's down-range - but setting up the engagment geometry would be a little dicy; you'd need the "forward missile controller" ship to be close to in-line between the launch points and the target.

And of course Mycroft is based on dotting the system with FTL fire control relays to let you control Apollo missiles out to at least as far as the hyper limit - they'd get handed off to multiple relays during such a launch.


So what specifically did you want to do with the hand-off capability? It might be possible now, or could be possibly with Mycroft. The main limitation, it would seem to me, is the relatively limited number of ships that mount the Keyhole II necessary to take handed off FTL fire control.

Jonathan_S wrote:So what specifically did you want to do with the hand-off capability? It might be possible now, or could be possibly with Mycroft. The main limitation, it would seem to me, is the relatively limited number of ships that mount the Keyhole II necessary to take handed off FTL fire control.

It wouldn't necessarily have to be FTL control. Apollo ACM birds do have legacy fire-control links, so conceivably they could be handed off to LACs or other ships closer to the targets in the absence of enough KHII links.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:But if LACs aren't doable then I really don't see any usefulness for present day moon bases for planetary defense except for the GA who can launch really long-legged Apollo system defense missiles, especially if they can be handed off.

Which cues another desire, that the next advancement of Apollo missiles is the capability of being handed off. Per my limited understanding of the tech. shrugs and more shrugs

We know from RFC's posts that even current Apollo can be handed off within the same squadron because his post (saved in the Pearls) about keyhole platform survivability talks about how control of an Apollo salvo, launched from multiple podnaughts, will be passed from ship to ship to allow different Keyhole II's to take turns transmitting (to make it much harder to track them by their emissions)

With some pre-coordination they could probably be handed off to a Keyhole II equipped ship that's down-range - but setting up the engagment geometry would be a little dicy; you'd need the "forward missile controller" ship to be close to in-line between the launch points and the target.

And of course Mycroft is based on dotting the system with FTL fire control relays to let you control Apollo missiles out to at least as far as the hyper limit - they'd get handed off to multiple relays during such a launch.


So what specifically did you want to do with the hand-off capability? It might be possible now, or could be possibly with Mycroft. The main limitation, it would seem to me, is the relatively limited number of ships that mount the Keyhole II necessary to take handed off FTL fire control.

My bold to call attention.

To further increase the range of Apollo and/or to decrease the FTL lag. And to augment/supplement/support ships that are much closer to the action that may have to shoot themselves dry.

Beowulf could use a moon base crammed to the hilt with Apollo missiles, which would significantly decrease the number of Keyhole II-capable ships needed in Beowulf space.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:But if LACs aren't doable then I really don't see any usefulness for present day moon bases for planetary defense except for the GA who can launch really long-legged Apollo system defense missiles, especially if they can be handed off.

Which cues another desire, that the next advancement of Apollo missiles is the capability of being handed off. Per my limited understanding of the tech. shrugs and more shrugs

We know from RFC's posts that even current Apollo can be handed off within the same squadron because his post (saved in the Pearls) about keyhole platform survivability talks about how control of an Apollo salvo, launched from multiple podnaughts, will be passed from ship to ship to allow different Keyhole II's to take turns transmitting (to make it much harder to track them by their emissions)

With some pre-coordination they could probably be handed off to a Keyhole II equipped ship that's down-range - but setting up the engagment geometry would be a little dicy; you'd need the "forward missile controller" ship to be close to in-line between the launch points and the target.

And of course Mycroft is based on dotting the system with FTL fire control relays to let you control Apollo missiles out to at least as far as the hyper limit - they'd get handed off to multiple relays during such a launch.


So what specifically did you want to do with the hand-off capability? It might be possible now, or could be possibly with Mycroft. The main limitation, it would seem to me, is the relatively limited number of ships that mount the Keyhole II necessary to take handed off FTL fire control.

My bold to call attention.

cthia wrote:To further increase the range of Apollo and/or to decrease the FTL lag. And to augment/supplement/support ships that are much closer to the action that may have to shoot themselves dry.

Beowulf could use a moon base crammed to the hilt with Apollo missiles, which would significantly decrease the number of Keyhole II-capable ships needed in Beowulf space.

For he who failed the Crusher. The Crusher crushes. *shrugs*

If this notion is possible, what would be the best method of executing it? Would a Keyhole II capable ship that is closer to the action send FTL commands to initiate launch of the missiles from the moon base? Or would the moon base launch on its own accord?