Honorverse ramblings and musings

Dauntless wrote:

cthia wrote:There was a passage in SOV pointing out that this was the first time Solarian space had fallen to an enemy. I'd've thought something like that would have its, at least the core, citizens up in arms just as much as any US controlled region falling to an enemy. The sort of reaction not courted by the Harrington Doctrine.

i'm sure this has been covered before but i'll mention it again.

sollies are very insular. extremly so, in fact. except for odd weidos who go into international freight (something controlled by mostly very large sol based corporations who treat it like a game) or the nut jobs who sign up for the military of all things, then if it isn't happening in their star system then it is pretty much a none issue.

the league is not the US or any other country. it is closer to the british commonwealth. if something happens to Australia then to the people in a lot of uk, assuming it isn't a nuke etc, it is "hmm sucks to be them" .

the US reaction would be much the same. as there is even less of a connection beyond being another former uk colony and one that didn't even kick the annoying brits out but let them leave when they got fed up.

you might have some local system to the captured star start worrying but to the core everyone outside the core is a barbarian despite the polite fiction that the shell and verge are civilised because they belong to the league.

That will both hurt and help the coming breakup. It will hurt because, frankly, most people don't really care about most other planets. The big transstellars will be involved but it won't affect most people near the center. And that's a real lot of people.

It will help because those people don't really care. If the SL winds up with 1000 planets instead of 1700 plus, most people won't really care.

It will affect the government because of the need for tax money but remember that the League only get money through shipping fees. It won't affect the public.

Hello Theemile,

A few points to remember is that the IAE is the SKM/SEM's largest single trading pardner, a huge market from having added a new star system an average of once a decade from the initial six at the beginning of the 17th century; ie, having 38 before adding its 51% share of Silesia, thus putting it in control of over 70 rather populated star systems [2-4+B average] compared to the SKM/SEM's current 4+ billion [it was 3.4215 billion in 1900 PD according to tUoHH in WorldsoH, so a pitiful 1% growth rate would easily top 4 billion in 22 years], the 2+ billion of Trevor's Star, and the 40 billion of the Tallbot sector's 16 member systems for probably only a third to a quarter of the IAE's new combined total.

The impor5tance of the AE's huge trading market has been overlooked in recent textev, but was repeatedly mentioned early on, particularly in HAE.

One of HH's 'discoveries' in HAE was that the IAN's wall wasn't 2/3 the size of the RMN's after 5 years of war and all the RMN's construction according to ONI and SIS, but 3/4; an unsuspected increase of 1/8.

Though in a separate post, RFC has put the difference of going from only around 200 to 300 SD/DN's rather than what such fractions would be to a war expanded RMN, in effect a 'risk fleet' intended to pressure or coerce the SKM into giving the AE a freer hand in Silesia, given the war with the peep's until GhostRider changed the calculus of war.

The risk fleet's roughly 100 SD/DN's @ M$30-40B each, would have cost the average Andermanni star system roughly M$100 Billion or ~M$34-50 spread over 3-4 years, perhaps an extra dollar a month per citizen.

Just as the Persian empire was the Roman empire's largest trading pardner, their wars never interfered with their trade or the Silk road, upon which they both depended; whatever friction the AE and the SKM had in Silesia etc, the mutual trade was and is too important to ignore or somehow be damaged.

Using the term Silesia was always a tip-off that it would be traded and or sacrificed at the appropriate time.

I'm waiting for Chein-lu to show up at Mesa, perhaps a week 'late' or less etc, but nonetheless a rather definite demonstration where the AE stands in regards to Mesa and the SL that has protected it for so many centuries.

The AE may be 600-700 LY from Sol, but they can seize a huge chunk of the league and verge near them besides dominating all the non-league systems from halfway to the SKM, about 95 LY from Gregor to 200-300 LY beyond the capitol toward Asgerd etc.

All of which makes UC ever more interesting.

L


[quote="Theemile"][quote="cthia"]
Which is asinine. What if the idiot in power suffers from dementia or something?

Does anyone except me wonder what kind of tech the Andermani has? The fact that they have approximately 200SDs? shocked me. How did they get to be so large? If they're not fighting wars they are not losing ships, but still.

If the RMN hadn't been brawling it out with Haven over the many decades and hadn't lost any ships they'd have, what, 400? Yet the RMN is more than twice as wealthy as the Andermani. It's all about the MWJ. Overly simplified bean counting?[/quote]

Up until recently, the Andermani was much larger than the Star Kingdom, with a larger military. Even back in their founding days, they had Battleships when no one else (but the sollies) had them. The Andermani empire had roughly 20 some planets in 1900 by slowly acquiring their neighbors over the years, and always had a large military. The RMN didn't surpass them for 3rd largest fleet until well into the King Roger buildup.

As for their tech, it was pretty much laid out in WoH that they were just slightly behind the curve Manticore was setting. Remember, they rolled out the laserhead first in ~1870. In WoH, They developed podlayers on their own, DDMs, advanced compensators, great stealth, and pushed laserhead standoff ranges past 50,000 km, before they joined the alliance.[/quote]

The AE may have been SEM's largest trading partner before Oyster Bay but things have changed.
Manticore still has that massive and currently mostly idle merchant marine fleet but it is not presently producing much in the way of goods for export. It is, in fact, importing massive amounts of things, primarily to reestablish it's major orbital infrastructure, rebuild it's military and civilian production capability and supply it's military with spare parts, munitions and even new ships built by Haven and perhaps Beowulf.

Manticore can't produce the products and equipment it used to export to even it's portion of Silesia before OB. It also can't provide the shipping of Solly (and other goods from beyond the SL to any of Silesia or any of the sytems in the verge since it can't send ships into the League or let them get into the areas of the Verge where they are likely to run across SLN ships. At best, they can work deals transhipping cargo at various points but that gets into the whole problem of 1) giving SL systems continuing markets in places the SEM controls or allows access via transshipment accross SEM controlled space, 2) picking us said cargos from SL flagged ships or through neutral ports helps lighten the burden of lost shipping capacity to the Leage because of Lacoon I.

Manticore is going to have perhaps a harder time replacing the civilian market production than the military because the civilian side has to compeat against the military industrial needs - and that military side is needed now for survival. Up to the point of OB, Manticore (with the combination of having Grayson as a major trading partner) was producing gobs of civilian products for export to the League and lots of places in the Verge--and all of Silesia. Now, they are loosing market share.
This is going to be a long term problem. They are going to have to replace the civilian side workforce as well as the military materials and builder side. This will not go away quickly, you are talking years and years.

Hello Brigade XO,

You're quite right in that the SEM's civilian goods production has been hammered, albeit not as bad as the military industrial complex's final assembly section; but given how little needs to be manufactured in space, there's still quite a bit left.

However for what was lost aboard the space stations, there is the untouched Beowulf civilian market with the same tech level, and the Andermanni, who do not have such a bounty of empty freighters.

We've never had any hard figures I recall regarding the size of the Andermanni merchant fleet, unlike Beowulf's or the SEM's, but adequate for 38 populated star systems plus some exports to Silesia, the SKM and the SL, implies quite a bit.

I expect quite a lot of that shipped to the SKM in the first war was re-exported to the SL etc as its industries shifted to war production where that would impact domestic goods production.

However I seem to recall RFC posting here or at the bar that civilian production was so different that it hadn't been much impacted by the war.

One would think that 38 star systems [plus Beowulf] ought to be able to replace the SEM's lost production, a temporary increase of barely 2.5% per systems should do it.

Granted it will affect the SEM's future market share, but in a war for survival some sacrifices have to be made until the lost production can be replaced, perhaps in 4-5 years.

All the empty freighters can still move cargoes along the hyper bridges to an ever increasing part of the former SL, not to mention the verge.

Restoring the SEM's full economy is certainly a national security issue, so the new space stations will definitely incorporate civilian industrial modules in their designs.

Personally, I'm curious of what non space ship or station construction requires manufacturing in space or zero-G.

RFC has never bothered to mention specifics, so please feel free to suggest some.

L


[quote="Brigade XO"]The AE may have been SEM's largest trading partner before Oyster Bay but things have changed.
Manticore still has that massive and currently mostly idle merchant marine fleet but it is not presently producing much in the way of goods for export. It is, in fact, importing massive amounts of things, primarily to reestablish it's major orbital infrastructure, rebuild it's military and civilian production capability and supply it's military with spare parts, munitions and even new ships built by Haven and perhaps Beowulf.

Manticore can't produce the products and equipment it used to export to even it's portion of Silesia before OB. It also can't provide the shipping of Solly (and other goods from beyond the SL to any of Silesia or any of the sytems in the verge since it can't send ships into the League or let them get into the areas of the Verge where they are likely to run across SLN ships. At best, they can work deals transhipping cargo at various points but that gets into the whole problem of 1) giving SL systems continuing markets in places the SEM controls or allows access via transshipment accross SEM controlled space, 2) picking us said cargos from SL flagged ships or through neutral ports helps lighten the burden of lost shipping capacity to the Leage because of Lacoon I.

Manticore is going to have perhaps a harder time replacing the civilian market production than the military because the civilian side has to compeat against the military industrial needs - and that military side is needed now for survival. Up to the point of OB, Manticore (with the combination of having Grayson as a major trading partner) was producing gobs of civilian products for export to the League and lots of places in the Verge--and all of Silesia. Now, they are loosing market share.
This is going to be a long term problem. They are going to have to replace the civilian side workforce as well as the military materials and builder side. This will not go away quickly, you are talking years and years.[/quote]

Hi Lyonheart, In addition to the Andermani and Beowulf, Manticorian manufacturers have Manticore's other Allies, The Talbott Quadrant, Silesia, other locations in the "old" SKM and Haven to pick through to find alternative manufacturing locations. Given that full capability of the big 6 stations is probably as far as 4-5 years away, Companies are probably scrambling to rebuild their supply chain and manufacturing base anyplace they can find it, now. Investing in Talbott and Silesia (with local partners) allows them to take advantage of tax credits, with the advantages of bringing their production up quicker than waiting on the big stations and disperses technology and high end jobs into Manticore's other planets, hopefully opening up more markets for the products as well.

Ditto for investing in Haven - they can probably find business which, for a slight investment in infrastructure, can produce their products in a very short period, and they can probably get tax advantages from the Havenite government to do so - and they still get the advantage of the MMM to distribute their wares.

While the IA's merchant marine was substantial, we have several examples in text of the MMM servicing the IAN as part of the Triangle trade. While most internal trade was probably done with Andermani hulls, Manticore hulls seem to be a common site in Andermani space. (bringing analogues of WW1, as Gremany and France were each other's largest pre-war trading partners, despite the tensions.)

lyonheart wrote:Hello Brigade XO,

You're quite right in that the SEM's civilian goods production has been hammered, albeit not as bad as the military industrial complex's final assembly section; but given how little needs to be manufactured in space, there's still quite a bit left.

However for what was lost aboard the space stations, there is the untouched Beowulf civilian market with the same tech level, and the Andermanni, who do not have such a bounty of empty freighters.

We've never had any hard figures I recall regarding the size of the Andermanni merchant fleet, unlike Beowulf's or the SEM's, but adequate for 38 populated star systems plus some exports to Silesia, the SKM and the SL, implies quite a bit.

I expect quite a lot of that shipped to the SKM in the first war was re-exported to the SL etc as its industries shifted to war production where that would impact domestic goods production.

However I seem to recall RFC posting here or at the bar that civilian production was so different that it hadn't been much impacted by the war.

One would think that 38 star systems [plus Beowulf] ought to be able to replace the SEM's lost production, a temporary increase of barely 2.5% per systems should do it.

Granted it will affect the SEM's future market share, but in a war for survival some sacrifices have to be made until the lost production can be replaced, perhaps in 4-5 years.

All the empty freighters can still move cargoes along the hyper bridges to an ever increasing part of the former SL, not to mention the verge.

Restoring the SEM's full economy is certainly a national security issue, so the new space stations will definitely incorporate civilian industrial modules in their designs.

Personally, I'm curious of what non space ship or station construction requires manufacturing in space or zero-G.

RFC has never bothered to mention specifics, so please feel free to suggest some.

L

Brigade XO wrote:The AE may have been SEM's largest trading partner before Oyster Bay but things have changed.
Manticore still has that massive and currently mostly idle merchant marine fleet but it is not presently producing much in the way of goods for export. It is, in fact, importing massive amounts of things, primarily to reestablish it's major orbital infrastructure, rebuild it's military and civilian production capability and supply it's military with spare parts, munitions and even new ships built by Haven and perhaps Beowulf.

Manticore can't produce the products and equipment it used to export to even it's portion of Silesia before OB. It also can't provide the shipping of Solly (and other goods from beyond the SL to any of Silesia or any of the sytems in the verge since it can't send ships into the League or let them get into the areas of the Verge where they are likely to run across SLN ships. At best, they can work deals transhipping cargo at various points but that gets into the whole problem of 1) giving SL systems continuing markets in places the SEM controls or allows access via transshipment accross SEM controlled space, 2) picking us said cargos from SL flagged ships or through neutral ports helps lighten the burden of lost shipping capacity to the Leage because of Lacoon I.

Manticore is going to have perhaps a harder time replacing the civilian market production than the military because the civilian side has to compeat against the military industrial needs - and that military side is needed now for survival. Up to the point of OB, Manticore (with the combination of having Grayson as a major trading partner) was producing gobs of civilian products for export to the League and lots of places in the Verge--and all of Silesia. Now, they are loosing market share.
This is going to be a long term problem. They are going to have to replace the civilian side workforce as well as the military materials and builder side. This will not go away quickly, you are talking years and years.

Are the Andermani honoring Lacoon as well, the embargo against the League?

cthia wrote:Are the Andermani honoring Lacoon as well, the embargo against the League?

Doubtful. No reason they should. (until the SLN decides to make an example of some Anderman Merchant ship for trading with Manticore or Beowulf.)

There's probably some legalese involved if they're shipping League cargoes through the wormhole network, but they're not likely to be too blatant about "blockade running" League cargoes.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Are the Andermani honoring Lacoon as well, the embargo against the League?

Doubtful. No reason they should. (until the SLN decides to make an example of some Anderman Merchant ship for trading with Manticore or Beowulf.)

There's probably some legalese involved if they're shipping League cargoes through the wormhole network, but they're not likely to be too blatant about "blockade running" League cargoes.

Then why can't Manticore loan freighters to the IAN? Is Manticore actually trying to embargo the League inasmuch as slap them hard by denying them the junction for shipping their goods?

I got the overall impression that Manty shipping was pulled out of the League only as a safety precaution. Not to prevent goods from being shipped to points in the League.

lyonheart wrote:
Hello Brigade XO,

You're quite right in that the SEM's civilian goods production has been hammered, albeit not as bad as the military industrial complex's final assembly section; but given how little needs to be manufactured in space, there's still quite a bit left.

However for what was lost aboard the space stations, there is the untouched Beowulf civilian market with the same tech level, and the Andermanni, who do not have such a bounty of empty freighters.

We've never had any hard figures I recall regarding the size of the Andermanni merchant fleet, unlike Beowulf's or the SEM's, but adequate for 38 populated star systems plus some exports to Silesia, the SKM and the SL, implies quite a bit.

I expect quite a lot of that shipped to the SKM in the first war was re-exported to the SL etc as its industries shifted to war production where that would impact domestic goods production.

However I seem to recall RFC posting here or at the bar that civilian production was so different that it hadn't been much impacted by the war.

One would think that 38 star systems [plus Beowulf] ought to be able to replace the SEM's lost production, a temporary increase of barely 2.5% per systems should do it.

Granted it will affect the SEM's future market share, but in a war for survival some sacrifices have to be made until the lost production can be replaced, perhaps in 4-5 years.

All the empty freighters can still move cargoes along the hyper bridges to an ever increasing part of the former SL, not to mention the verge.

Restoring the SEM's full economy is certainly a national security issue, so the new space stations will definitely incorporate civilian industrial modules in their designs.

Personally, I'm curious of what non space ship or station construction requires manufacturing in space or zero-G.

RFC has never bothered to mention specifics, so please feel free to suggest some.

L

Bold and underlined mine.

IMHO, I don't think it's so much that this manufacturing needs to be done in space, as it is just convenient to do it in space. In space there aren't any environmental concerns and counter-grav technology means it's relativity cheap to bring up raw materials from a planet, if necessary. A lot, if not most, raw materials can probably be obtained from asteroids.

cthia wrote:Then why can't Manticore loan freighters to the IAN? Is Manticore actually trying to embargo the League inasmuch as slap them hard by denying them the junction for shipping their goods?

I got the overall impression that Manty shipping was pulled out of the League only as a safety precaution. Not to prevent goods from being shipped to points in the League.

Preventing goods from being shipped in the League was one consequence of issuing a recall of all Manticore-registered shipping that was definitely taken into account though. The primary reason communicated was that tensions exist between the SEM and the League and that thus the RMN cannot guarantee the safety of manticoran vessels in League space, sure, but the crippling effect this would have on the solarian economy was as desirable for Manticore as getting all these ships to safety was. Laocoon I and II are all about using strategic force multipliers to inflict the largest amount of damage without actually having to fire a shot, if nothing else, they serve as a reminder that Manticore, for all its minuscule size, is not to be trifled with.

Now, I don't think there's anything stopping a manticoran shipping company from reregistering some or all of their vessels in the Andermani Empire and then running them that way, but I would think that for the moment at least, the insurance premiums for ships heading into SL space are quite high; that, more than anything, is going to discourage companies from doing that in large volume.

That being said, I think Weird Harold has it right: There's no reason for Manticore to prevent Andermani traders from using the Junction, quite the opposite in fact. MWJ access is the big carrot to the Laocoon stick, after all.