GA response to SL attempts to prevent seccessions

robert132 wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:

I see three ways that foreign applicant might be accepted
1) No preferential treatment at all you have to make the cutoff, if there's a five thousand students in the incoming class you have to be in the top five thousand applicants.

2) Somewhat relaxed entrance requirements combined with mandatory additional tutoring once accepted.

3) Special prep schools to spend a year or two doing that additional tutoring before applying.

But again, however they did it they were taking kids from allied systems and putting them through the Naval Academy; and Alizon and Zanzibar don't seem any better off than several of the worlds in Silesia and Talbott.
I'd be surprised if they don't find a way to find and accept reasonable numbers of candidates from Manticore's new Imperial systems.

There is possibly a 4th way, seats in a given class being held open at the request of the Foreign Office for "X" number of top Midshipmen who already have some training from their home system Naval Academy, perhaps having finished Academy Prep School and 1 to 2 years or more and are assigned to finish their training at Sag Island as EXCHANGE students, a similar number of RMN Middies finishing their training at Alizon, Grayson, Zanzibar or wherever.

In this way they already have a grounding in the basics, are top performers AND have the ties most governments would require to their home system service and now top it off with experience working with the Navies of allied powers.

robert132 wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:

I see three ways that foreign applicant might be accepted
1) No preferential treatment at all you have to make the cutoff, if there's a five thousand students in the incoming class you have to be in the top five thousand applicants.

2) Somewhat relaxed entrance requirements combined with mandatory additional tutoring once accepted.

3) Special prep schools to spend a year or two doing that additional tutoring before applying.

But again, however they did it they were taking kids from allied systems and putting them through the Naval Academy; and Alizon and Zanzibar don't seem any better off than several of the worlds in Silesia and Talbott.
I'd be surprised if they don't find a way to find and accept reasonable numbers of candidates from Manticore's new Imperial systems.

There is possibly a 4th way, seats in a given class being held open at the request of the Foreign Office for "X" number of top Midshipmen who already have some training from their home system Naval Academy, perhaps having finished Academy Prep School and 1 to 2 years or more and are assigned to finish their training at Sag Island as EXCHANGE students, a similar number of RMN Middies finishing their training at Alizon, Grayson, Zanzibar or wherever.

In this way they already have a grounding in the basics, are top performers AND have the ties most governments would require to their home system service and now top it off with experience working with the Navies of allied powers.

cthia wrote:Absolutely robert. In fact, I think you can change that possible to a probable. It is what I was alluding to upstream. Candidates who have already shown proficiency and conquered the learning curve, from another accredited program whose credits will transfer. Nice thought.

The idea of exchange students is amusing and I'm sure a reality. Though I am not so sure about a strategy of sending Sag Isle's middies—leaving the premiere naval academy in the galaxy—to study "abroad."

Normally when you are a foreign exchange student you do so because there is something to gain from the experience that you cannot achieve natively. In the case of american students studying abroad, the advantages are clear. They get to see the wonders of the world, the beauty of other countries, experience their culture and are exposed to its language(s) firsthand.

I don't see the benefits of a Sag Isle middie leaving, or wanting to leave, Sag Isle to finish up anywhere else. The Andermani (withstanding) for that awful German language if the opportunity so presents itself.

Though I could be wrong. Grayson is said to be a very beautiful planet -- just deadly.

Also, keep in mind that many people erroneously take "exchange" at face value. Countries accepting exchange students are in no way indebted to send their own.

PeterZ wrote:I was envisioning the mothballed SDs orbiting a moon in multiple rings. One or two RDs could work through those rings easily enough.

Unless those bases orbited uninhabited planets, any relativistic sand would threaten civilians. Not sure what the impact of some amount of sand hitting the atmosphere at relativistic speeds and would be. I suspect not good at all.
quote="lyonheart"Hi PeterZ,

Even at rather low speeds, 3 RD's would take a while to turn around for the next pass some 30-40 times; it's much simpler to have 110-121 hit every rank or file all at once, then all rendezvous for pickup.

Then rinse and repeat, as another poster always seem to put it.

Hitting SLN bases, not just the BF anchorages, with just relativistic sand, is kind of amusing; "Warning, warning! You have one half hour to abandon the station before a hundred-thousand tons of sand hits at .28+C, due to budget cutbacks and over enthusiastic missile use, we're using this simple very low fuel technique to please all the greenies out there; FYI, we couldn't stop it now if we wanted to, so this your final warning."

Keep smiling, and keep the good ideas coming.

L

PeterZ wrote:Why not simply send in a drone to run its wedge through every ship in its path? Or or three drones working together will destroy all the SDs in the anchorage in less than 20 minutes.

PeterZ wrote:I was envisioning the mothballed SDs orbiting a moon in multiple rings. One or two RDs could work through those rings easily enough.

Unless those bases orbited uninhabited planets, any relativistic sand would threaten civilians. Not sure what the impact of some amount of sand hitting the atmosphere at relativistic speeds and would be. I suspect not good at all.
quote="lyonheart"Hi PeterZ,

Even at rather low speeds, 3 RD's would take a while to turn around for the next pass some 30-40 times; it's much simpler to have 110-121 hit every rank or file all at once, then all rendezvous for pickup.

Then rinse and repeat, as another poster always seem to put it.

Hitting SLN bases, not just the BF anchorages, with just relativistic sand, is kind of amusing; "Warning, warning! You have one half hour to abandon the station before a hundred-thousand tons of sand hits at .28+C, due to budget cutbacks and over enthusiastic missile use, we're using this simple very low fuel technique to please all the greenies out there; FYI, we couldn't stop it now if we wanted to, so this your final warning."

Keep smiling, and keep the good ideas coming.

L


quote="PeterZ"Why not simply send in a drone to run its wedge through every ship in its path? Or or three drones working together will destroy all the SDs in the anchorage in less than 20 minutes.

ldwechsler wrote:quote="PeterZ"I was envisioning the mothballed SDs orbiting a moon in multiple rings. One or two RDs could work through those rings easily enough.

Unless those bases orbited uninhabited planets, any relativistic sand would threaten civilians. Not sure what the impact of some amount of sand hitting the atmosphere at relativistic speeds and would be. I suspect not good at all.
quote="lyonheart"Hi PeterZ,

Even at rather low speeds, 3 RD's would take a while to turn around for the next pass some 30-40 times; it's much simpler to have 110-121 hit every rank or file all at once, then all rendezvous for pickup.

Then rinse and repeat, as another poster always seem to put it.

Hitting SLN bases, not just the BF anchorages, with just relativistic sand, is kind of amusing; "Warning, warning! You have one half hour to abandon the station before a hundred-thousand tons of sand hits at .28+C, due to budget cutbacks and over enthusiastic missile use, we're using this simple very low fuel technique to please all the greenies out there; FYI, we couldn't stop it now if we wanted to, so this your final warning."

Keep smiling, and keep the good ideas coming.

L


Tactics are tactics but it's probably easier to simply come into a system and destroy ever orbital platform. Starting from scratch is very tough. First, there's the matter of setting up your first platforms so you can build the rest.

For the Manties, they could hit the major shipbuilding planets and destroy all the orbital facilities. Come back a year and half later and destroy everything built. Not enough time to really build a major ship.

And the Sollie League government is so openly corrupt that finding out information should be easy. Bolthole could be done because the people involved in setting it up were few and really determined to keep a secret. That kind of secrecy would be tough when dealing with bureaucracy.

lyonheart wrote:[snip]Of course this is all speculation, but it all might be moot if the radius of the RD's wedge is more than 700 meters from the RD, since that's wider than any SD, so there would be no debris!
[snip]
The only caveat I can see is that for that level of fine control, the RD's might need to be FTL controlled, which ought to fairly easy to marry the Mk-23E's AI and FTL receiver and transmitter to the RD after removing all non mission required equipment.
[snip]

Mission of Honor: Ch 29 wrote:Something large, jagged, and broken—it looked, in the fleeting glimpse he had, as if it were probably at least half of a heavy fabrication module, which must have massed the better part of thirty-five thousand tons—went screaming past Quay’s prow and impacted on the inner surface of her wedge’s roof. Or, rather, was ripped into very, very, very tiny bits and pieces in the instant it entered the zone in which local gravity went from effectively zero to several hundred thousand gravities in a space of barely five meters.

lyonheart wrote:Hi PeterZ,

I suspect part of the mission planning would be to minimize collateral damage, and options such as approaching the anchorage from the angle of the nearest inhabited planet, so impacts would be away from it or any other inhabited planet or space habitat that might be affected.

Of course this is all speculation, but it all might be moot if the radius of the RD's wedge is more than 700 meters from the RD, since that's wider than any SD, so there would be no debris!