Whatever happened to Byng's people in New Tuscany?

I'm listening to Storm from the Shadows. I've only read it before and I missed something when I did.

There is a line that goes "Eighty percent of their ships and ninety-five percent of their personnel were still there, and both ships and people were pretty much physically intact."

So Admiral Henke left them there in disabled ships but not imprisoned. So did they have enough time to be retrieved? Or are they still there? Imagine if they are, their ships aren't going anywhere anytime soon and they have to be getting some news coming in, they'd have to feel horrible.

But I don't think they are. Although I don't remember any mentions of manticore going back to pick them up, or any mentions of the league getting them they can't still be there.

ThisName1 wrote:I'm listening to Storm from the Shadows. I've only read it before and I missed something when I did.

There is a line that goes "Eighty percent of their ships and ninety-five percent of their personnel were still there, and both ships and people were pretty much physically intact."

So Admiral Henke left them there in disabled ships but not imprisoned. So did they have enough time to be retrieved? Or are they still there? Imagine if they are, their ships aren't going anywhere anytime soon and they have to be getting some news coming in, they'd have to feel horrible.

But I don't think they are. Although I don't remember any mentions of manticore going back to pick them up, or any mentions of the league getting them they can't still be there.

Henke had the crews evac the ships to the planet's surface. The Manties selected 2 BCs to take back to Manticore to take apart. After intel forays, the Manty prize crews on the remaining ships triggered the computer's self defense melt down sequence, rendering the ships useless until a mobile shipyard could come out and replace the computers.

The last we were told, the ~34,000 survivors of the fleet are still guests of the New Tuscany system, part of New Tuscany's reparations for playing a part in the games against the SEM. ( "Reparations" which include the SEM rebuilding their space station and granting them "favored nation" tarrif rights.) Because a declaration of war was not yet in effect, Henke did not inprision them. However, we have not been told of anyone going to retrieve them.

ThisName1 wrote:I'm listening to Storm from the Shadows. I've only read it before and I missed something when I did.

There is a line that goes "Eighty percent of their ships and ninety-five percent of their personnel were still there, and both ships and people were pretty much physically intact."

So Admiral Henke left them there in disabled ships but not imprisoned. So did they have enough time to be retrieved? Or are they still there? Imagine if they are, their ships aren't going anywhere anytime soon and they have to be getting some news coming in, they'd have to feel horrible.

But I don't think they are. Although I don't remember any mentions of manticore going back to pick them up, or any mentions of the league getting them they can't still be there.

But they are. Ok, at least theoretically possible would've been some kind of repatriation effort for the crews by Sol-based SLN units via the Manticore Junction - after the League got the message, and before Crandall came calling. After all, the League and the Star Empire were, officially at least, at peace, and it would be considered a humantarian effort to smooth the waves of the Byng-desaster. But there's no mention at all for such an effort; and the vessels would've to remain at New Tuscany, nonetheless.

Now, in Honorverse present time, there's no way they could go back to SLN-Territory. So, with >99.999% probability - they're still at New Tuscany and remain there.

Eagleeye wrote:But they are. Ok, at least theoretically possible would've been some kind of repatriation effort for the crews by Sol-based SLN units via the Manticore Junction - after the League got the message, and before Crandall came calling. After all, the League and the Star Empire were, officially at least, at peace, and it would be considered a humantarian effort to smooth the waves of the Byng-desaster. But there's no mention at all for such an effort; and the vessels would've to remain at New Tuscany, nonetheless.

Now, in Honorverse present time, there's no way they could go back to SLN-Territory. So, with >99.999% probability - they're still at New Tuscany and remain there.

I agree that most of them are likely still guests at New Tuscany but I'd put the likelyhood more like 60%.

The repatriation wouldn't have needed to go through the Manticoran wormhole, it'd have taken longer but they could have been brought home through the Mesa wormhole instead of Lynx to Manticore to Beowulf.
I'd be surprised if Crandal, who after all was moving through the area towards Spindal didn't divert at least a couple destroyers to pick up key personnel and take them back to the League for in-person debriefing. And even after the disaster at Spindle if any of the escorts or supply train got away I don't think there was any RMN force at New Tuscany to stop them from grabbing Byng's survivors on their way back to the League. (OTOH they may will not have been willing to risk it).

I doubt Crandal would have detached enough tonnage to move all of them back to the League before she attacked Spindle though.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Eagleeye wrote:But they are. Ok, at least theoretically possible would've been some kind of repatriation effort for the crews by Sol-based SLN units via the Manticore Junction - after the League got the message, and before Crandall came calling. After all, the League and the Star Empire were, officially at least, at peace, and it would be considered a humantarian effort to smooth the waves of the Byng-desaster. But there's no mention at all for such an effort; and the vessels would've to remain at New Tuscany, nonetheless.

Now, in Honorverse present time, there's no way they could go back to SLN-Territory. So, with >99.999% probability - they're still at New Tuscany and remain there.

I agree that most of them are likely still guests at New Tuscany but I'd put the likelyhood more like 60%.

The repatriation wouldn't have needed to go through the Manticoran wormhole, it'd have taken longer but they could have been brought home through the Mesa wormhole instead of Lynx to Manticore to Beowulf.
I'd be surprised if Crandal, who after all was moving through the area towards Spindal didn't divert at least a couple destroyers to pick up key personnel and take them back to the League for in-person debriefing. And even after the disaster at Spindle if any of the escorts or supply train got away I don't think there was any RMN force at New Tuscany to stop them from grabbing Byng's survivors on their way back to the League. (OTOH they may will not have been willing to risk it).

I doubt Crandal would have detached enough tonnage to move all of them back to the League before she attacked Spindle though.

They didn't have to use the MWJ to repatriate the crews. They could've used the Mesa-Visigoth bridge. It would've taken several months but it's doable. IIRC it's about 60 days by dispatch boat to Old Terra. Figuring a decently fast return journey by a small fleet of passenger transports (75-90 days) and a return journey just as fast, plus the time spent organizing the operation and getting the requisite ships together(if they actually want to in the first place). They would be arriving on Old Earth fairly soon.

If Maitland Askew is still there I wonder how many times he's said "I told you so!"

saber964 wrote:They didn't have to use the MWJ to repatriate the crews. They could've used the Mesa-Visigoth bridge. It would've taken several months but it's doable. IIRC it's about 60 days by dispatch boat to Old Terra. Figuring a decently fast return journey by a small fleet of passenger transports (75-90 days) and a return journey just as fast, plus the time spent organizing the operation and getting the requisite ships together(if they actually want to in the first place). They would be arriving on Old Earth fairly soon.

They really don't need to wait for transports to come from the league to pick them up, they can contract local freighters to configure as troopships and take them to Meyers or some other Frontier Fleet base. They can just repatriate senior officers or the entire contingent -- minus skeleton crews to maintain SLN ownership.

(I'm sure New Tuscany would love to have all those ships just abandoned so they can claim them as salvage. Reprogramming them would be cheaper than building that many from scratch.)

Weird Harold wrote:

saber964 wrote:They didn't have to use the MWJ to repatriate the crews. They could've used the Mesa-Visigoth bridge. It would've taken several months but it's doable. IIRC it's about 60 days by dispatch boat to Old Terra. Figuring a decently fast return journey by a small fleet of passenger transports (75-90 days) and a return journey just as fast, plus the time spent organizing the operation and getting the requisite ships together(if they actually want to in the first place). They would be arriving on Old Earth fairly soon.

They really don't need to wait for transports to come from the league to pick them up, they can contract local freighters to configure as troopships and take them to Meyers or some other Frontier Fleet base.

I like to imagine that they chartered some ships and made it back to Meyers ... just before Henke's arrival.

Bill Woods wrote: I like to imagine that they chartered some ships and made it back to Meyers ... just before Henke's arrival.

Or just after.

If the current Senior Officer of what was Bing's force was going to organize getting his people away from New Tucsany, that more likely would have been to the nearest FF station. If they couldn't hire locally for a specific trip (or several given the size of the contingent to be moved) they do have a couple of options. This presumes they were not told to maintain the personel there in anticipation of one or more repair ships being sent to fix the ships with slagged computers.

One would be to start sending out groups via merchant shipping either going -eventurally- to a system with a FF base or to a place they could change vessels.

Another would be to send a request to the closet FF base and have FF charter a ship to come pick up the SLN personel.

You would think that some kind of discussion would have been going on at SLN HQ to recover these personel, that's a lot of people stranded.

Once the declaration of war, it is unlikely that even a neutral merchant ship would be allowed to take active duty SLN personel through the Wormhole Juntion or any of the wormholes held in Lacoon II. Doing so would fly in the face of reason, you don't give your enemy back 34,000 of their most combat operations experience people. Not so much surviving Mike's destruction of Bing, it's that these are FF personel and as such have much more experience with things like actual piracy supression and combat operations even if that is "pacifying" rebelions for friendly Dictators.
Of course, where to put them if a non-beligerent flagged ship shows up with 60 FF naval personel is a good question. Perhaps dump them on the inhabited planet of the system associated with the wormhole and tell them to charge SL for thier upkeep (and safekeeping, you arn't going to want them running around loose).