Remaining holes in SLN intel

quite possibly a cat wrote:

Vince wrote:Also, consider this quote: "History is written by the victors." Mesa (not to be confused with the Mesan Alignment) lost, and will no longer be writing anything (including propoganda), probably for a considerable while. When they do start writing history, it will most likely be by the Mesan group previously known as the seccies.

But the Malign is still around and it's their propaganda we're talking about. Two, Henke isn't going to be suppressing reporters or news, so yeah most Mesans will be able to write whatever the hell they want.] Also Seccies and Slaves almost certainly lost people in the Final Flourish. They are unlikely to be amused.

Vince wrote:Again remember that "History is written by the victors." The victors, not those on the losing side, get to judge who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. This has been true throughout human history, and no doubt will be continue to be true as long as humans are writing history. The Mesan authorities lost the revolution that Anton and Cachat supported. Therefore, Anton and Cachat are freedom fighters, not terrorists or murderers.

Manticore isn't a totalitarian state. If the Manticorian people learn what happened they will be the ones calling for blood here. Haven is even worse states since their systems can vote to leave.

Look Manticore doesn't magically get to dictate history. That's not how things work. Furthermore, the Manticore has a really good incentive to repudiate Henke. Those stealth ships can come back and burn Manticore or any other planet they feel like. Planets are too big of targets to defend effectively, if the attackers are willing to cross the Alpha wall outside of detection range. Manticore has no recourse if that happens.

Manticore NEEDS the precedent that planets don't face strategic bombardment. That precedent is why the Yawata strike inflicted minimal damage to their worlds. Had the attackers simply been willing to send the spent pods and graser torpedoes crashing into the planet things would have been vastly worse.

Why would they repudiate Henke? She did nothing wrong. There are some people who only look for the worst. Of course, Roosevelt called them "muckrakers" and the word has taken on a new meaning but it fits here.

There is NOTHING to repudiate. If the top leadership repudiated her for no reason, they would lose their honor.

And let us remember that Tourville was on site. There were many dozens of ships there and all will basically show that there were no missiles fired.

And once on planet it would be fairly simple to find exactly where the explosions came from. And they came from ground level.

Why do some people actually look for things done wrong by the Manties? Unless...unless...unless we have people among us who secretly work for MAlign!

Confess!

@ Quite Possibly A Cat

I think you're stretching matters a bit. Manticore's government has already approved what the terrible duo did. Not only approved their actions but sent them back to Mesa with the contrivance of Beowulf. If Manticore was at all concerned without the galactic public viewed either Cachet or Anton, they would not have done so. Nor will they conduct a trial in Manticore courts because of some outcry which MIGHT result if the worst possible connotations of their actions were set in front of the public. In fact with the full disclosure and transparency of the facts being provided you might see any hue and outcry silenced in favor of support for the duo. Regardless of their culpability in the explosions (real or imagined), the Manti public may just view their actions as not only acceptable to strike back at the unseen enemy who just attacked them but as a legitimate act of war.

More over, when (not 'if' mind you) the GA wins it really will become a mute point. If because you want to choose that the victor writes history or because Manticore will still have the strongest military, it won't matter. They are not going to hand over Anton to whatever is left of Mesa's government. Old or new. Nor will they extradite him to any other interstellar power for trial over EE violation or mass murder or anything else.

Period. They won't do it. The government has already approved his actions to date.

I think everyone can safely let this go. Whatever propaganda comes from the SL or is generated by the MAlign won't change the matter.

As for dictating history, they won't need to, though they certainly could. They will tell their side, others will tell their sides and people will make up their own minds based on their biases and what they're exposed to. It really won't make a hill of beans difference to the duo or Manticore at that point. History is often heavily influenced by the victors, though in modern times it is rarely written by the victors. The losers will often try their own spin of propaganda. Some of which will work, some won't. No doubt that will happen in the fight with the MAlign. But it won't matter to what happens to Victor or Anton. Nor will it matter to Henke.

Again, we can be reasonably confident that Elizabeth will approve Henke's actions, so she will be safe no matter who calls for her head. Elizabeth will never believe that Henke or anyone in the fleet caused the destructive nukes that exploded all over and around Mesa.

As for the stealth ships, I could find the textev on it if need be, but they decided that they located the arrival of the MAlign ships that ghosted in to launch the graser torpedoes. No one will EVER succeed in an attack in such a fashion again. So no, those stealth ships can't come back and repeat their attack.

It's been brought up before that planets are easy targets. You don't need stealth ships and sneaky ways in. You just need one ship to come in far far away outside the array's detection range. They coast into the system with everything shut down. They launch an entirely ballistic projectile at the planet. It accelerates to some significant fraction of the speed of light then goes dead. Physics does the rest for you. And no one can ever prove how it happened, who caused it or where it came from. If the MWW wanted to destroy planets and populations this is the simplest way to accomplish it with no effective defense.

To me the fact that he has not used this method signifies that he won't use it because it's just too easy a way to destroy things. There's no finesse, no skill and more importantly, no space battles that his readers want to see.

That would be a moot point, not a mute one.

The whole Oyster Bay style of attach can most certainly work again, just not quite with the same effectiveness at with Manticore and probably the major Haven systems or Grayson.
Very few systems have anything approching the depth of sensor coverage which at least the Manticore Home System has and the partners in the GA plus their major treaty partners now are sharing information on what they know about OB. Mostly that is "somebody" with a drive system that doesn't seem to register (for ships and apparently very large missiles) also has a very effective new stealth technology, BUT what they used for weapons - primarily KEW boosted or released way out side of the star systems- are visible if you aren't looking for weapons dependent on normal impeller drives. You do have both broaden your sensor capability to look for what end up as ballistic KEWs and other things moving in and through your systems using visual (and probably radar & LIDAR) systems in addition to investigating any impeller hits out to very distant ranges. You also need to have full time sidewalls and other shielding on your orbital infrastructure and probably have impellers and sidewalls/bucklers up on your military ships parked in your own systems.
Most systems not only haven't heard any of the details of OB, they would, at best, have the kind of defensive plans and systems earlier used by Manticore to evacuate and then shield stations once intruders or had weapons fired at them using impeller drives.

At this point this includes all of the SL -except Beowulf- and certainly the Verge etc though possibly many of the proto RF systems have something quietly in-place. Any systems (though apprently not the SLN) which have been paying attention may be adding depth of sensors and talking about better facilities shielding but it is expensive and takes time.

For the next rounds of Alignment attacks, you have at least the same Ghost/Shark combinations that hit Manticore and Grayson plus the Lenny Dets and whatever else the Alignment has been building which are still essentially invisible to standard detection gear. Heck, they could swan into the Sol System (quietly- swans can be very quiet) and one or two others and blow the crap out of a couple of SLN Reserve Fleet formations and major military stations. Hitting the reserve fleet hulls wouldn't be all that productive except to grind home the point that SLN is usless, hitting orbital facilites in the Sol System and a few others (like Yilden for Tehnodyne) would also have massive political and morale implications, not the least of which is that SLN- and so the SL can't protect anybody and you need to look to your own defence. Of course that would have the negative (for the Alignment) of making the point that the boogyman Manticore and Haven have been talking about does exist but that may not be enough to hold the League together since the League Buracracy has been destroying confidence in the League already.

Brigade XO wrote:That would be a moot point, not a mute one.

The whole Oyster Bay style of attach can most certainly work again, just not quite with the same effectiveness at with Manticore and probably the major Haven systems or Grayson.
Very few systems have anything approching the depth of sensor coverage which at least the Manticore Home System has and the partners in the GA plus their major treaty partners now are sharing information on what they know about OB. Mostly that is "somebody" with a drive system that doesn't seem to register (for ships and apparently very large missiles) also has a very effective new stealth technology, BUT what they used for weapons - primarily KEW boosted or released way out side of the star systems- are visible if you aren't looking for weapons dependent on normal impeller drives. You do have both broaden your sensor capability to look for what end up as ballistic KEWs and other things moving in and through your systems using visual (and probably radar & LIDAR) systems in addition to investigating any impeller hits out to very distant ranges. You also need to have full time sidewalls and other shielding on your orbital infrastructure and probably have impellers and sidewalls/bucklers up on your military ships parked in your own systems.
Most systems not only haven't heard any of the details of OB, they would, at best, have the kind of defensive plans and systems earlier used by Manticore to evacuate and then shield stations once intruders or had weapons fired at them using impeller drives.

At this point this includes all of the SL -except Beowulf- and certainly the Verge etc though possibly many of the proto RF systems have something quietly in-place. Any systems (though apprently not the SLN) which have been paying attention may be adding depth of sensors and talking about better facilities shielding but it is expensive and takes time.

For the next rounds of Alignment attacks, you have at least the same Ghost/Shark combinations that hit Manticore and Grayson plus the Lenny Dets and whatever else the Alignment has been building which are still essentially invisible to standard detection gear. Heck, they could swan into the Sol System (quietly- swans can be very quiet) and one or two others and blow the crap out of a couple of SLN Reserve Fleet formations and major military stations. Hitting the reserve fleet hulls wouldn't be all that productive except to grind home the point that SLN is usless, hitting orbital facilites in the Sol System and a few others (like Yilden for Tehnodyne) would also have massive political and morale implications, not the least of which is that SLN- and so the SL can't protect anybody and you need to look to your own defence. Of course that would have the negative (for the Alignment) of making the point that the boogyman Manticore and Haven have been talking about does exist but that may not be enough to hold the League together since the League Buracracy has been destroying confidence in the League already.

As usual, your posts spur thought.

I doubt that even Manticore can fully protect its industry from an entire squadron of these things at such a time when they are ready. Even what is available now can probably decimate the planet. Remember, the MAN hit Grayson too. If they decide to strike Manticore again, but concentrating their forces on one big target this time, in the manner that a first class navy does, then Manticore is toast.

What are the negative downsides of a 24/7 sidewall condition? I guess that's akin to DEFCON 2? LOL

Operating costs, maintenance etc., must be killing the Manties on a 24/7 sidewall defense condition.

I'm not even going to send Paul Revere's kin out to mention that The Lenny's Are Coming! They won't make an appearance until next arc, but wouldn't it be a nice an awful thing simultaneously if RFC ended UH with a musing by one of the Detweiler's that the Lenny Dets are almost complete?!

ldwechsler wrote:
Why would they repudiate Henke? She did nothing wrong. There are some people who only look for the worst. Of course, Roosevelt called them "muckrakers" and the word has taken on a new meaning but it fits here.

Because Henke looks guilty to just about everyone in the galaxy. Look, the Manticorian/GA story is objectively absurd to everyone else.

ldwechsler wrote:And let us remember that Tourville was on site. There were many dozens of ships there and all will basically show that there were no missiles fired.

First Manticore DID send things into the atmosphere and I'm assuming they released plenty of drones. It is also important to remember that, Mistletoe was able to take out its target without being detected.

The real problem though is there were also assorted Mesan passive sensors on site and I bet those Mesan sensors will show just enough suspicious activity to damn Manticore. Either because a) Manticore is being framed by some not-nice people, b) some overzealous Mesan will tweak the data c) sensor ghosts or d) abuse of retrospective analysis.

Fireflair wrote:I think you're stretching matters a bit. Manticore's government has already approved what the terrible duo did. Not only approved their actions but sent them back to Mesa with the contrivance of Beowulf. If Manticore was at all concerned without the galactic public viewed either Cachet or Anton, they would not have done so.

Eh, everything I remember reading shows people convincing themselves they weren't involved. I don't remember any scene were they actually get a full debriefing. I think that people in Manticore and Haven convinced themselves that Anton and Victor had nothing to do with the explosion. Not professional behavior, but not really murder either.

Fireflair wrote: In fact with the full disclosure and transparency of the facts being provided you might see any hue and outcry silenced in favor of support for the duo.

I suspect that the full facts being laid out simply wouldn't be believed. If I get told a high level member of the military AND government (Honor) knowingly met with an enemy intelligence agent (Victor) AND allowed that enemy intelligence agent access to an extremely valuable military asset (a warship) AND let that enemy go in a time of war, I would suspect conspiracy and treason. Especially if the explanation involves a rather absurd conspiracy.

I suspect the Havenite populace would be particularly suspicious. Victor is ex State Security. Their government has a long history of lying to them, and I suspect that Havenites will be much less trusting of the Treecat's magic powers than Manticorians.

Fireflair wrote: Regardless of their culpability in the explosions (real or imagined), the Manti public may just view their actions as not only acceptable to strike back at the unseen enemy who just attacked them but as a legitimate act of war.

Strike back? What are you talking about? Green Pines was before Yawata. I recommend the Manticorian government not bring up the order of events.

Oh and Mesa doesn't actually have magical stealth technology as I'm sure Henke is about to find out. Mesa simply wasn't behind the Yawata strike. It wasn't even a Mesan citizen behind it! The Dets' don't officially exist!

Do you know what tends to happen when you start a war on claims that another country attacked you and is making horrible weapons, but it later turns out said country neither attacked you nor made those horrible weapons? People tend to stop supporting you.

Fireflair wrote:As for the stealth ships, I could find the textev on it if need be, but they decided that they located the arrival of the MAlign ships that ghosted in to launch the graser torpedoes. No one will EVER succeed in an attack in such a fashion again. So no, those stealth ships can't come back and repeat their attack.

Targeting major industrial nodes? Yeah, that won't work as well. Targeting a planet? That will work just fine. The stealth ships are probably overkill for planet killing, but you might as well go all out.

Brigade XO wrote:
For the next rounds of Alignment attacks, you have at least the same Ghost/Shark combinations that hit Manticore and Grayson plus the Lenny Dets and whatever else the Alignment has been building which are still essentially invisible to standard detection gear. Heck, they could swan into the Sol System (quietly- swans can be very quiet) and one or two others and blow the crap out of a couple of SLN Reserve Fleet formations and major military stations. Hitting the reserve fleet hulls wouldn't be all that productive except to grind home the point that SLN is usless, hitting orbital facilites in the Sol System and a few others (like Yilden for Tehnodyne) would also have massive political and morale implications, not the least of which is that SLN- and so the SL can't protect anybody and you need to look to your own defence. Of course that would have the negative (for the Alignment) of making the point that the boogyman Manticore and Haven have been talking about does exist but that may not be enough to hold the League together since the League Buracracy has been destroying confidence in the League already.

Personally, if I was an evil Malign person, I would wait until Manticore was in the system, then fire on some helpless civilian targets. Somehow, I doubt that Sol really got rid of all the bio-weapons and nano-weapons after the Final War. They might have even kept on developing them (to build better counter-measures obviously) and can target them against only members of the military. IIRC, the military gets various treatments for anti-coercion and what not. Sounds like a perfect target to me.

Fireflair wrote:More over, when (not 'if' mind you) the GA wins it really will become a mute point.

Not so sure about that. The Earthings just copy the winning tactics from Out of the Dark. They'd probably need a little nano-wizardry to pull it off in the Honorverse, but Earth is the home of the Final War. I bet they could manage.

I think I agree with Fireflair here. Green Pines is pretty sensational in the short term, but....

in the GA it won't matter at all.

On Mesa it gets lost in the horror of all the blasts that covered Houdini.

In the League it will soon be yesterdays news, something displaced by self interest and self preservation as the League comes unglued.

Don

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quite possibly a cat wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:
Why would they repudiate Henke? She did nothing wrong. There are some people who only look for the worst. Of course, Roosevelt called them "muckrakers" and the word has taken on a new meaning but it fits here.

Because Henke looks guilty to just about everyone in the galaxy. Look, the Manticorian/GA story is objectively absurd to everyone else.

ldwechsler wrote:And let us remember that Tourville was on site. There were many dozens of ships there and all will basically show that there were no missiles fired.

First Manticore DID send things into the atmosphere and I'm assuming they released plenty of drones. It is also important to remember that, Mistletoe was able to take out its target without being detected.

The real problem though is there were also assorted Mesan passive sensors on site and I bet those Mesan sensors will show just enough suspicious activity to damn Manticore. Either because a) Manticore is being framed by some not-nice people, b) some overzealous Mesan will tweak the data c) sensor ghosts or d) abuse of retrospective analysis.

Fireflair wrote:I think you're stretching matters a bit. Manticore's government has already approved what the terrible duo did. Not only approved their actions but sent them back to Mesa with the contrivance of Beowulf. If Manticore was at all concerned without the galactic public viewed either Cachet or Anton, they would not have done so.

Eh, everything I remember reading shows people convincing themselves they weren't involved. I don't remember any scene were they actually get a full debriefing. I think that people in Manticore and Haven convinced themselves that Anton and Victor had nothing to do with the explosion. Not professional behavior, but not really murder either.

Fireflair wrote: In fact with the full disclosure and transparency of the facts being provided you might see any hue and outcry silenced in favor of support for the duo.

I suspect that the full facts being laid out simply wouldn't be believed. If I get told a high level member of the military AND government (Honor) knowingly met with an enemy intelligence agent (Victor) AND allowed that enemy intelligence agent access to an extremely valuable military asset (a warship) AND let that enemy go in a time of war, I would suspect conspiracy and treason. Especially if the explanation involves a rather absurd conspiracy.

I suspect the Havenite populace would be particularly suspicious. Victor is ex State Security. Their government has a long history of lying to them, and I suspect that Havenites will be much less trusting of the Treecat's magic powers than Manticorians.

Fireflair wrote: Regardless of their culpability in the explosions (real or imagined), the Manti public may just view their actions as not only acceptable to strike back at the unseen enemy who just attacked them but as a legitimate act of war.

Strike back? What are you talking about? Green Pines was before Yawata. I recommend the Manticorian government not bring up the order of events.

Oh and Mesa doesn't actually have magical stealth technology as I'm sure Henke is about to find out. Mesa simply wasn't behind the Yawata strike. It wasn't even a Mesan citizen behind it! The Dets' don't officially exist!

Do you know what tends to happen when you start a war on claims that another country attacked you and is making horrible weapons, but it later turns out said country neither attacked you nor made those horrible weapons? People tend to stop supporting you.

Fireflair wrote:As for the stealth ships, I could find the textev on it if need be, but they decided that they located the arrival of the MAlign ships that ghosted in to launch the graser torpedoes. No one will EVER succeed in an attack in such a fashion again. So no, those stealth ships can't come back and repeat their attack.

Targeting major industrial nodes? Yeah, that won't work as well. Targeting a planet? That will work just fine. The stealth ships are probably overkill for planet killing, but you might as well go all out.

Brigade XO wrote:
For the next rounds of Alignment attacks, you have at least the same Ghost/Shark combinations that hit Manticore and Grayson plus the Lenny Dets and whatever else the Alignment has been building which are still essentially invisible to standard detection gear. Heck, they could swan into the Sol System (quietly- swans can be very quiet) and one or two others and blow the crap out of a couple of SLN Reserve Fleet formations and major military stations. Hitting the reserve fleet hulls wouldn't be all that productive except to grind home the point that SLN is usless, hitting orbital facilites in the Sol System and a few others (like Yilden for Tehnodyne) would also have massive political and morale implications, not the least of which is that SLN- and so the SL can't protect anybody and you need to look to your own defence. Of course that would have the negative (for the Alignment) of making the point that the boogyman Manticore and Haven have been talking about does exist but that may not be enough to hold the League together since the League Buracracy has been destroying confidence in the League already.

Personally, if I was an evil Malign person, I would wait until Manticore was in the system, then fire on some helpless civilian targets. Somehow, I doubt that Sol really got rid of all the bio-weapons and nano-weapons after the Final War. They might have even kept on developing them (to build better counter-measures obviously) and can target them against only members of the military. IIRC, the military gets various treatments for anti-coercion and what not. Sounds like a perfect target to me.

Fireflair wrote:More over, when (not 'if' mind you) the GA wins it really will become a mute point.

Not so sure about that. The Earthings just copy the winning tactics from Out of the Dark. They'd probably need a little nano-wizardry to pull it off in the Honorverse, but Earth is the home of the Final War. I bet they could manage.

It is not just the Manticore/GA spin...according to RFC, who is God in this universe, it is the truth.

O'Hanrahan's report is basically "fake news."

It doesn't matter all that much who believes what. The people in the GA will hear from all of THEIR people that it is not so. They will have top techs from the navy who will swear the bombs were on planet, not sent there.

Zilwicki, or someone speaking from his data, will point out that a lot of key people disappeared before any of the attacks.

Further, few people anywhere in the galaxy like Mesans. They are in the position of South Africa under apartheid. No one gave a damn if Africans blew up South African whites.

When all of this is going, no one is going to really care all that much about the Mesans.

Also, Manticore will be sending out its side of the story and they've got far better lines of communication than the League.

And since it's a war, there'll be lots of other things going on.

IINM, there is an invaluable source for SLN intel sitting right on planet...

Sir Lyman Carmichael, where are you? If I were the League, I'd be fleecing him for military information. Carmichael knows a lot more about RMN capabilities than all of the entire SL ONI. Come on, how much does the above average American military buff know about the U.S. Navy's capabilities? We got a pretty good darn idea of missile performance. Heck, it's a click away on our communication's net. Our Internet.

What the average US citizen in this forum knows about the US Navy's capabilities is much better than US Naval Intelligence, if ours is as smart as theirs.

Running with that notion, Sir Lyman Carmichael can fill in a lot of the gap in SL intel. He can at least assure them that their wildest reports are probably underestimating the real truth. Carmichael, considering his position and security clearance, is a virtual gold mine to the League. Carmichael should be getting raked over the hot coals as bad as Joubert put Harahap through.

Oh my, this leads to the notion that if Carmichael is actually an intelligence commodity for the League, that should make him a MAlign target. In no way does the MAlign want an intelligence asset lying around for the League.

"Even if we can't get to Simoes we can get to Carmichael."

Poor Carmichael. The fact that he knew the risks, is little consolation.

cthia wrote:IINM, there is an invaluable source for SLN intel sitting right on planet...

Sir Lyman Carmichael, where are you? If I were the League, I'd be fleecing him for military information. Carmichael knows a lot more about RMN capabilities than all of the entire SL ONI. Come on, how much does the above average American military buff know about the U.S. Navy's capabilities? We got a pretty good darn idea of missile performance. Heck, it's a click away on our communication's net. Our Internet.

What the average US citizen in this forum knows about the US Navy's capabilities is much better than US Naval Intelligence, if ours is as smart as theirs.

Running with that notion, Sir Lyman Carmichael can fill in a lot of the gap in SL intel. He can at least assure them that their wildest reports are probably underestimating the real truth. Carmichael, considering his position and security clearance, is a virtual gold mine to the League. Carmichael should be getting raked over the hot coals as bad as Joubert put Harahap through.

Oh my, this leads to the notion that if Carmichael is actually an intelligence commodity for the League, that should make him a MAlign target. In no way does the MAlign want an intelligence asset lying around for the League.

"Even if we can't get to our Simoes on Manticore, we can get to Carmichael."

Poor Carmichael. The fact that he knew the risks, is little consolation.

Do we really know that he is on planet? I thought that along with the Beowulf delegation, he withdrew after the announcement of the plebecite on Beowulf

Don

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n7axw wrote:

cthia wrote:IINM, there is an invaluable source for SLN intel sitting right on planet...

Sir Lyman Carmichael, where are you? If I were the League, I'd be fleecing him for military information. Carmichael knows a lot more about RMN capabilities than all of the entire SL ONI. Come on, how much does the above average American military buff know about the U.S. Navy's capabilities? We got a pretty good darn idea of missile performance. Heck, it's a click away on our communication's net. Our Internet.

What the average US citizen in this forum knows about the US Navy's capabilities is much better than US Naval Intelligence, if ours is as smart as theirs.

Running with that notion, Sir Lyman Carmichael can fill in a lot of the gap in SL intel. He can at least assure them that their wildest reports are probably underestimating the real truth. Carmichael, considering his position and security clearance, is a virtual gold mine to the League. Carmichael should be getting raked over the hot coals as bad as Joubert put Harahap through.

Oh my, this leads to the notion that if Carmichael is actually an intelligence commodity for the League, that should make him a MAlign target. In no way does the MAlign want an intelligence asset lying around for the League.

"Even if we can't get to our Simoes on Manticore, we can get to Carmichael."

Poor Carmichael. The fact that he knew the risks, is little consolation.

Do we really know that he is on planet? I thought that along with the Beowulf delegation, he withdrew after the announcement of the plebecite on Beowulf

Don

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IINM, textev hasn't gotten him off planet yet. I don't recall the delegation leaving either. I was longing for RFC to wrap that up for us in SoV, even before the worthless Solly junk. Most of us already knew where that crap was headed anyway. But not so much Carmichael. If I had my choice, I'd much rather the author had exposed another card. Like where Carmichael is.

One thing is for certain. If Carmichael is still on planet, he's a wealth of information.