After Lacoon II - how big is the Solarian League really?

Attention - the following text could contain spoiler regarding Shadow of Victory

I mean - with the closing of all the Wormholes and Termini known to the RMN for Solarian Shipping exept News Services: how much of the Solarian League is physically able to act in union against a common foe? I take it for granted, that at least the Verge and the outer shell - as far as they are near (50 to 100 LY away) to the borders of the GA - are immediately lost for the Mandarins. They simply can't collect the money and any other goodies from these stars without using the wormhole-network because of the distance; and the GA has already started to "collect" Solarian scalps (simply because they were forced to do it through the Malign Operation Janus) in this regions.

But the core worlds and the inner shell are another matter ... so, how much of the population and the industrial power of the League is situated there - and how big is their dependence from deliveries between each other and from the outer shell and the verge?

Eagleeye wrote:But the core worlds and the inner shell are another matter ... so, how much of the population and the industrial power of the League is situated there - and how big is their dependence from deliveries between each other and from the outer shell and the verge?

According to the most recent Honorverse map -- from the analysis thread -- there are only four wormholes inside the league. I suspect that there won't be much impact on Core worlds from closed wormholes. The withdrawal of Manticoran freighters from League space is going to have far more of an impact.

Eagleeye wrote:But the core worlds and the inner shell are another matter ... so, how much of the population and the industrial power of the League is situated there - and how big is their dependence from deliveries between each other and from the outer shell and the verge?

Just based off the very edge of A Rising Thunder, virtually all Core worlds, not only have the internal industry to absorb all the lost business from withdrawn Manticoran freighters, but also the self-sufficiency to even build substantial navies (which they presumably don't have much beyond simple LACs or similar for system patrols). In the specific case of Beowulf, we know that there are several other Core worlds who were fairly close to them. Strathmore, Kenichi and Galen are all supposed to be within 60 light-years, and also as of ART were at least considering following Beowulf in seceding from the League.

So Core Worlds would likely fall into that same sort of "clustering", and with whatever (highly) limited freighters they have to start opening, or enlarging existing, trade with their closest neighbours, as part of small(ish) networks.

The Shell would be forced into larger networks, because their internal industries aren't as developed as Core Worlds, or they'll "pull a Maya" and try to organize as entire Sectors. If Shell worlds don't try to organize collectively, they'll likely be trying to try going the Warlord approach and conquering what they want/need by force of arms.

The Verge is just plain screwed, they're completely dominated by transtellers, but they relied on Manticoran freighters and wormhole terminii, so they're likely to revolt and start trying to cut deals with Manticore.

The majority of wormholes cover the Verge and Shell, so Laocoon II is both going to hit them hardest, but also give them the most incentive to declare neutrality ASAP, while also bringing them the relatively rapid deployment of Manticoran/Alliance ships to protect them from a possible vengeful Federal Government.


Laocoon II's real effect, is in hitting the Federal Government, or at least the income of people like the Mandarin's ability to game the system. By removing the tax incomes, and the ability to squeeze the Verge & Protectorates, any money they want to spend has to either come from their personal pockets, or by somehow ramming through direct taxation on the Core Worlds. Direct taxation is currently TOTALLY against the League's Constitution, and the bureaucrats literally can't get around that, especially now with the Constitution being held up and looked at for the first time in centuries. Even the Mandarins have little to no real hope they could ram a direct taxation through on the Core Worlds, but they also know that's the only real place they could get the money they need to wage war against Manticore.

Somtaaw wrote:
Just based off the very edge of A Rising Thunder, virtually all Core worlds, not only have the internal industry to absorb all the lost business from withdrawn Manticoran freighters, but also the self-sufficiency to even build substantial navies (which they presumably don't have much beyond simple LACs or similar for system patrols). In the specific case of Beowulf, we know that there are several other Core worlds who were fairly close to them. Strathmore, Kenichi and Galen are all supposed to be within 60 light-years, and also as of ART were at least considering following Beowulf in seceding from the League.

So Core Worlds would likely fall into that same sort of "clustering", and with whatever (highly) limited freighters they have to start opening, or enlarging existing, trade with their closest neighbours, as part of small(ish) networks.

That said I'm sure there are plenty of specific trade routes between core worlds that utilized wormholes. Even in the Core using the Beowulf <-> Manticore <-> Henesy <-> Phoenix <-> Erewhone <-> Joshua series of wormholes would be faster than going strait from Sol past Joshua. And there are probably a few other worlds close enough to the edge of the shell that it makes sense to head outwards to, say, Asgard, to skip around the periphery using wormholes and reenter nearer your destination.
And that's just judgeing from the maps that have the known junctions on them - there are also a bunch of just point-to-point wormhole bridges that aren't on book maps - a few of which have been mentioned in the books.

Weird Harold wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:But the core worlds and the inner shell are another matter ... so, how much of the population and the industrial power of the League is situated there - and how big is their dependence from deliveries between each other and from the outer shell and the verge?

According to the most recent Honorverse map -- from the analysis thread -- there are only four wormholes inside the league. I suspect that there won't be much impact on Core worlds from closed wormholes. The withdrawal of Manticoran freighters from League space is going to have far more of an impact.

Agreed Harold. The withdrawal the Manti bottoms from the trade is a major block to commerce within the League itself and the Verge.

LaCoon II is a major block as well.

I'm certain RFC remembers the impact the 1967 closing of the Suez Canal had on international shipping all over the planet. Ship movements that would normally only take a few days or a couple of weeks suddenly were required to reroute and spend not days but months at sea to reach their destinations.

Closing off the wormhole trade routes essentially does the same thing. Starships in his universe don't REQUIRE wormholes to reach their destinations just as merchantmen today don't REQUIRE the Suez or Panama Canals to get where they are going, but cutting travel time equates to cutting cost of transport.

LaCoon I and II don't necessarily shut down interstellar commerce for the League, it just makes it hellishly more expensive and slow.

robert132" quote="Weird Harold wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:But the core worlds and the inner shell are another matter ... so, how much of the population and the industrial power of the League is situated there - and how big is their dependence from deliveries between each other and from the outer shell and the verge?

According to the most recent Honorverse map -- from the analysis thread -- there are only four wormholes inside the league. I suspect that there won't be much impact on Core worlds from closed wormholes. The withdrawal of Manticoran freighters from League space is going to have far more of an impact.

Agreed Harold. The withdrawal the Manti bottoms from the trade is a major block to commerce within the League itself and the Verge.

LaCoon II is a major block as well.

I'm certain RFC remembers the impact the 1967 closing of the Suez Canal had on international shipping all over the planet. Ship movements that would normally only take a few days or a couple of weeks suddenly were required to reroute and spend not days but months at sea to reach their destinations.

Closing off the wormhole trade routes essentially does the same thing. Starships in his universe don't REQUIRE wormholes to reach their destinations just as merchantmen today don't REQUIRE the Suez or Panama Canals to get where they are going, but cutting travel time equates to cutting cost of transport.

LaCoon I and II don't necessarily shut down interstellar commerce for the League, it just makes it hellishly more expensive and slow.[/quote]


I figured it out that a warship could travel 7-10 LY per day. Which means that traveling between Manticore and Lynx would take 70 to 100 days the long way versus 2 to 3 days through the MWJ. Now if you figure an average cost of a million dollars per day for pay, spareparts, food, maintenance, wear and tear, fuel etc etc. What would be the savings? Also the shorter trips means more cargoes hauled.

1200C --> 1500C = delta band = Merchant ships.
1200C = 3.6E8km/s
1 LY = 9.46E12km
1 LY @ 1200C requires 26,000 seconds
1 LY @ 1200C requires 7.3 hours

Took 9 days to go from Manticore to Grayson in HotQ, a distance of 32 IIRC LY.

100LY should require roughly 33days.

Phoenix to Hennesey, I do believe requires a week which in hyper Merchant time would require 20+ LY delta on destination between those two parts of the SL.

PS> Grav waves are even faster and cheaper, so lets not forget about them

Within the Core, the problem is primarily the loss of markets and sources of goods/materials lost because a) lack of ships, b) loss of developed and one would suppose most cost effective routes out to the markets/sources of desired goods beyond the Core.

The other loss is that set of shortcuts represented by the wormholes for the SL Navy to shift forces out to "better" starting point in any attempted raiding or tactical advances.

While the Core worlds probably can produce 95-98% (guess) of what they actualy need either at home or can aquire from other Core worlds, it becomes a process of developing/ modifying various manufacturing to supply things which were probably produced more inexpensively (including the shipping) than they could on said home world. That doesn't begin to address the long history of businesses having driven "local' competitors out of business by undercutting prices(and often selling things at a loss) to kill competiton.

The Verge and Shell gets an odd oppertunity to perhaps rid themselves of some Transtellar control if only because said companies are going to be severily pinched by the loss of markets. If they used to use a Lacoon II closed wormhole to run goods/products etc anywhere, the cost and the time-in-transit is going to change and what was profitable sources of things (and trade routes) may go right into the loss column. It has appeared to me that in many of the examples of Transtellar controled systems, they were using company shipping to move goods. Not much was indentified as Manit bottoms except for the one shipping company which was noted as having lost a major amount of capasity because it based it's company shipping on leased ships from Manti companies...which would have presumably all left for Manticore territory as soon as notified of the Admiraly requirement.

While the various Transtellars might still have profitable (at least in terms of local situations and trade) for stuff on given worlds or in relatively local/close systems already in local commerce for goods, the hit of loss of any further markest is going to hurt badly. At that point, it becomes a question of can the Transtellar survive in the local market without 1) exports and 2) inability to import enough goods and force the locals to buy them vs what can be produced localy. Some of the more competent TS managers may mearly continue the time-honored practice of forcing the sale of any existing or new local manufacturing of formerly imported goods to themselves and continue their incomes although at a much lower level.

This will always go back to "it depends".

Brigade XO wrote:Within the Core, the problem is primarily the loss of markets and sources of goods/materials lost because a) lack of ships, b) loss of developed and one would suppose most cost effective routes out to the markets/sources of desired goods beyond the Core........
At that point, it becomes a question of can the Transtellar survive in the local market without 1) exports and 2) inability to import enough goods and force the locals to buy them vs what can be produced localy.

Without Europe and the USA buying Chinese made goods, would China immediately collapse economically? Yes it would. This is essentially what the transtellars are doing in the Honorverse. Cheaply making the goods elsewhere, labor cost is low, to ship to where labor cost is high and prices are high

Now that the GA is in a shooting war with the SLN how long will they have those internal wormholes even?

Send a few of the Havenite ships augmented with GA recon drones if need be. Deploy the drones around the wormhole, lie doggo maybe 20-30 million km from it. Announce a blockade.

Sure, if the SLN committed enough force they could break the blockade but only at very high cost and the ship would slip away as it's not trapped within a hyper limit and free to disengage if it's situation looks threatening.

The Havenites can fire from pods, the ship doesn't have to give away it's location when it fires. Thus it's going to be extremely hard to locate and this game is played outside the hyper limit--if the SLN finds it it simply takes off into hyper, one of it's companions takes over control of the pods it deployed.

The only way they'll "succeed" is by soaking up all the missiles and they can't hold the wormhole no matter what because more ships can come back and play shooting gallery.