After Lacoon 2 what happens to Solarian merchant vessels

I am assuming that with the take over and control of all the wormhole junctions that the RMN can reach that Solarian merchant vessels will stray through them for awhile until they learn that they are under RMN control. What happens to the them, do they become prizes of the RMN or just turned away?

olddatsunfan wrote:I am assuming that with the take over and control of all the wormhole junctions that the RMN can reach that Solarian merchant vessels will stray through them for awhile until they learn that they are under RMN control. What happens to the them, do they become prizes of the RMN or just turned away?

I think, they will just turn away. The GA (mainly the RMN, because they are the blocking forces) simply doesn't have the capacity to take them as prizes and process the crews as POWs. The only thing I can imagine (if something like a solly cruise liner or so should happen to be available) is, that the solly merchant crews are put on such a ship, which will then sent back to where it came frome, and the merchant vessels itself will be destroyed.

Eagleeye wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:I am assuming that with the take over and control of all the wormhole junctions that the RMN can reach that Solarian merchant vessels will stray through them for awhile until they learn that they are under RMN control. What happens to the them, do they become prizes of the RMN or just turned away?

I think, they will just turn away. The GA (mainly the RMN, because they are the blocking forces) simply doesn't have the capacity to take them as prizes and process the crews as POWs. The only thing I can imagine (if something like a solly cruise liner or so should happen to be available) is, that the solly merchant crews are put on such a ship, which will then sent back to where it came frome, and the merchant vessels itself will be destroyed.

There was textev, although I forget exactly which book, possibly MoH, A FF detachment tried to escort a SLMM ship through a wormhole. They (The RMN) fired warning shots at the FF ships and chased them off. There is no evidence that the GA will actually conduct commerce raids. But I imagine it would go something like: "you have 30 minutes to abandon ship. In 31 minutes, I will fire for effect."

pappilon wrote:
There was textev, although I forget exactly which book, possibly MoH, A FF detachment tried to escort a SLMM ship through a wormhole. They (The RMN) fired warning shots at the FF ships and chased them off. There is no evidence that the GA will actually conduct commerce raids. But I imagine it would go something like: "you have 30 minutes to abandon ship. In 31 minutes, I will fire for effect."

That situation was a provocation, deliberately conducted by a Frontier Security Governor (if I remember correctly). Only 1 merchant, escorted by 5 BCs or so ... Somehow, I doubt, that will be the case very often

Most vessels will translate into normal space as short away from the terminus as physically possible, maybe only 1 or 2 million kilometers outside the respective hyperlimit/resonance zone of the terminus. Anything else would be considered as bad astrogation. So, they will sail into the claws of the blocking forces. And they will have no escorts at all. And the RMN-CO on the spot will have to decide what to do with them.

Why wouldn't they be boarded and manifests checked for items and people important to the war effort? Wouldn't be the first time Solarians were arrogant enough to do something stupid. And it seems irresponsible of the RMN not to check for what is so important that the Solarians might still risk trying to use the junctions, besides arrogance and ignorance.

olddatsunfan wrote:I am assuming that with the take over and control of all the wormhole junctions that the RMN can reach that Solarian merchant vessels will stray through them for awhile until they learn that they are under RMN control. What happens to the them, do they become prizes of the RMN or just turned away?

They're simply denied passage and turned away. Merchant vessels don't "stray through" a wormhole - they're carefully guided by the local navigation authorities. There's a passage in one of the books that shows that happening, with a rather strenuous argument between the skipper of a merchant ship and the Manticoran task force commander.

Lacoon II didn't come with a declaration of war, so there's no justification for taking them as prizes.

JohnRoth wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:I am assuming that with the take over and control of all the wormhole junctions that the RMN can reach that Solarian merchant vessels will stray through them for awhile until they learn that they are under RMN control. What happens to the them, do they become prizes of the RMN or just turned away?

They're simply denied passage and turned away. Merchant vessels don't "stray through" a wormhole - they're carefully guided by the local navigation authorities. There's a passage in one of the books that shows that happening, with a rather strenuous argument between the skipper of a merchant ship and the Manticoran task force commander.

Lacoon II didn't come with a declaration of war, so there's no justification for taking them as prizes.

Lacoön II included both seizing and closing wormholes to Solarian traffic, and active commerce raiding. So taking Solarian shipping as prizes may very well happen:

Mission of Honor, Chapter 26 wrote:“All right,” the earl continued when no one accepted his invitation. “Since the Sollies’re going to decide, as the Queen put it before Crandall actually showed up, that the Star Empire’s a nail and the thing for them to do is reach for the biggest damned hammer they’ve got, there’s not much point kowtowing to that jackass Kolokoltsov and his pain-in-the-ass, equally arrogant buddies. The way they’ve been viewing that Green Pines crap with alarm and calling for ‘an impartial interstellar investigation’—by Frontier Security, of all people!—into ‘the Star Empire’s apparent involvement in terroristic actions’ is a pretty fair indicator of where their brains—such as they have, and what there is of them—were headed even before Mike kicked Crandall’s arse! So I think our best option is to tell them flat out that the entire mess is the result of the way their people have fu— ah, screwed up by the numbers, and that we’re all done putting up with it. Send them the tac recordings from Spindle and ask them how many more superdreadnoughts they want our cruisers to kill before we even bring up our battlecruisers—much less our own wallers—and get down to the main event. And while we’re doing that, we go ahead and activate Case Lacoön, too.”
Faces tightened around the table with his last sentence. Case Lacoön was the Royal Manticoran Navy’s plan to close all wormhole nexii under its control to Solarian traffic. Or, rather, that was the first phase of Lacoön. The second phase included active commerce raiding and the extension of de facto Manticoran control to every wormhole nexus within its reach, regardless of who that nexus nominally belonged to.

Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis.

Oh, the Lacoons are definitely acts of war.

It's just that they are acts of economic warfare rather than part of a shooting war. Lacoon I dramatically cut the number of hulls available. Lacoon II dramatically increased the travel time of much of the remaining shipments, therefore, tying up the few remaining carriers for extended periods of time.

Imagine if all the major trucking companies in the US just stopped carrying goods. That's Lacoon I.

Now imagine what it would be like if the majority of the trucks on the road weren't there AND the few remaining trucks that were on the road couldn't use the interstate system. That's Lacoon II.

Imagine that you're a trucker in LA and you have a load headed to NY or FL. You head to the nearest exit on I-5 so you can run north to get onto I-10 to head to FL or to go to Barstow to get on I-40 to start working your way north and west towards NY. When you get to the exit, you find out that you can't use the interstate at all. To deliver, you're going to have to use state and US highways that have routinely lower speed limits and go through towns- where the speed limit is even lower. That 3-4 day run for a 2 person team of drivers (a solo can legally drive coast to coast in about a week) just doubled, if you're lucky, and it will probably take longer than that.

Don't forget, the vast majority, like 80% or more, of available trucks aren't out there any more. The few that are available are now tied up for vastly increased amounts of time per load AND your entire economy is geared toward the timely delivery of goods based on what was the norm prior to the sudden reduction in carriers and major increase in delivery time. In other words, things are about to come to a screeching halt.

All that is necessary is to turn them away. That's not to say that the Manties won't take prizes. That's a good source of bonus money for the crews. The Prize Courts will sell the cargo- thereby helping the Mantie war effort- and sell the ship with the proceeds getting split up among the crew.

The merchie has only a few choices if they are just turned away. They can return to their port of origin with the cargo they just picked up, they can go to a closer, alternative port and report to the shipper and receiver or they can plot a course through hyper and settle in for a L-O-N-G trip.

jtg452 wrote:Oh, the Lacoons are definitely acts of war.

It's just that they are acts of economic warfare rather than part of a shooting war. Lacoon I dramatically cut the number of hulls available. Lacoon II dramatically increased the travel time of much of the remaining shipments, therefore, tying up the few remaining carriers for extended periods of time.

Imagine if all the major trucking companies in the US just stopped carrying goods. That's Lacoon I.

Now imagine what it would be like if the majority of the trucks on the road weren't there AND the few remaining trucks that were on the road couldn't use the interstate system. That's Lacoon II.

Imagine that you're a trucker in LA and you have a load headed to NY or FL. You head to the nearest exit on I-5 so you can run north to get onto I-10 to head to FL or to go to Barstow to get on I-40 to start working your way north and west towards NY. When you get to the exit, you find out that you can't use the interstate at all. To deliver, you're going to have to use state and US highways that have routinely lower speed limits and go through towns- where the speed limit is even lower. That 3-4 day run for a 2 person team of drivers (a solo can legally drive coast to coast in about a week) just doubled, if you're lucky, and it will probably take longer than that.

Don't forget, the vast majority, like 80% or more, of available trucks aren't out there any more. The few that are available are now tied up for vastly increased amounts of time per load AND your entire economy is geared toward the timely delivery of goods based on what was the norm prior to the sudden reduction in carriers and major increase in delivery time. In other words, things are about to come to a screeching halt.

All that is necessary is to turn them away. That's not to say that the Manties won't take prizes. That's a good source of bonus money for the crews. The Prize Courts will sell the cargo- thereby helping the Mantie war effort- and sell the ship with the proceeds getting split up among the crew.

The merchie has only a few choices if they are just turned away. They can return to their port of origin with the cargo they just picked up, they can go to a closer, alternative port and report to the shipper and receiver or they can plot a course through hyper and settle in for a L-O-N-G trip.

My bold to call attention.

Well? Actually, I would say both. Lacoon II has a serious strategic effect on the SLN's ability to wage a commerce raiding war, and in a traditional shooting war as well. Not to mention the positive effects therein on the RMN.

Although I think the RMN should seize shipments and will -- the message should be clear and hammered home to the Sollies that this thing is for real -- the RMN doesn't have to actually seize shipments, rather than check manifests. You do NOT want to allow the enemy freedom of movement of resources along enemy supply lines during a war. Or miss opportunities to seize war stuffs -- like, oh, Cataphracts?