SPOILER end of the MA

pappilon wrote:
How many MAN/RF warships did the MAlign use in the Battle of Beowulf to destroy Mycroft and 3 habitat stations? How many ...anything would it have taken to prevent the loss of those civilian lives?

What about the next time? What happens when they decide to come out in the open?

You are trying to arm yourself against an enemy who has no desire to have a military confrontation.

You assume that he has no desire for military confrontation. If that were the case they wouldn't have spend the last few hundred years or so hatching their plan or plan on building large numbers of Leonard Detweiler class ships and they definitely wouldn't be counting on the RF navy.

Its entire focus is world domination through subversion, not military conquest. And it is not the entire military might of Beowulf hat is its enemy, but the billions of warm bodies that are not "genies".

Now that their plan has gone up in smoke what do they do? Fight for their beliefs or surrender?

The real war to be fought can not be fought with SD(p)s. Yes, they will be needed for the few and far between military confrontations. But the MAlign sees military confrontation as the last phase of a much more subtle political conflict.

What exactly do they plan on using the large number of Leonard Detweiler class ships for? Trade?

Read Chapter 38 of Mission of Honor and tell me that the MA is not planning on building a fleet for war.

You cannot build enough ships of any class to defeat the MAlign. No matter how awful an idea is, it cannot be defeated by raw strength.

So you ask them nicely? Is that the plan?

ywing14 wrote:

Pappilon, agree. It’s what I’ve been saying to sigs all along. There isn’t a point to building more SDs right now.

When exactly is the right time to build them?

n7axw wrote:I wouldn't go so far as to say build no more SD(p)s. What I have been objecting to is the notion that no matter what the problem, throw SD(p)s at it. Define the mission. And if it calls for more SD(p)s, build them. If not build what is actually needed to get the job done. SD(p)s are not a magic bullet to throw at every problem.

Don

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The mission is the defence of your territory and create a strategic reserve for the GA to form a fleet to attack Darius when they find it.

An SD(P) can do cruiser missions and SD(P) mission, while a BC/CA can do cruiser missions but cannot do SD(P) missions. Yes, sending an SD(P) on a mission a cruiser is suited for is massive overkill but if push comes to shove it can do it, but the reverse is not true, you can't send a CA to face off an SD(P) or more accurately you can send it but it just becomes an expensive coffin.

Just for the record before people start to lose their minds, I am not advocating using SD(P)'s for cruiser missions, I am just stating that with this many unknowns, and this many potential threats having plenty of SD(P)'s is much better then not having enough. Having a balanced approach of SD(P)'s,CLACs, BCs, CAs, CLs, and DDs allows you to meet all of your missions an protect your territory and people. Having a fleet with a lot of cruisers and a handful of SD(P)s means you can do some missions but in a stand up fight you are screwed and cannot fulfill your number one mission...the defence of your nation.

Joat42 wrote:

n7axw wrote:I wouldn't go so far as to say build no more SD(p)s. What I have been objecting to is the notion that no matter what the problem, throw SD(p)s at it. Define the mission. And if it calls for more SD(p)s, build them. If not build what is actually needed to get the job done. SD(p)s are not a magic bullet to throw at every problem.

Don
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"With limited tools, single-minded people apply them inappropriately or indiscriminately"

Or as the proverb goes: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

I usually hope for the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised. You on the other hand strike me as someone who hopes for the best and prepares for the best...


If you have no idea what the other guy is planning, having the most firepower on your side seems like a pretty solid idea to me. Having to little in the way of firepower when you need it just gets your people killed unnecessarily.

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
There you go making my point for me again.

A war is over...just not THE war.

The war is over, what they would have done if the war continued is a mute point.

If they(SEM/GA) can sustain those fleets at war with the SLN they can sustain those fleets in a war with their true enemy...the one who engineered everything up to that point.

You can't have it both ways, either they can or they can't. If the war with the SLN had continued the GA would have manned those ships and fielded them, so if they can do that against the League who only tried to kill millions of people why can't they do that against the enemy who has so openly shown their willingness to commit genocide.

The war is now over, as is a large majority of the justification for trying to build a massive fleet which would have been needed to take the SL. But with the SL's surrender there is no longer a justification to maintain/build a massive fleet. There is only a justification to find the Malign/Other Guys. Which if played correctly could help bind the new SL and GA together.

Are you assuming that the MA will now sit on their hands and wait for the GA to come and find them? That they will not be investing everything they have in R&D and industrial expansion? Do you think that the MA is going to sit on their hands and NOT build SD(P)'s of their own when they get the technology? Or LAC's? Is the MA just waiting for the GA to find them and kill them or are they preparing for war? The MA has their own little Bolthole and at least a dozen other systems to draw support from. It would be too late to start thinking of naval expansion when the GA discovers that the MA has spend the 5,10,15 or 20 years post UH building their industry, researching and building their fleets up.

They might have had to surrender if the Mandarins pushed through there amendment to tax the SL. Given that would have basically turned the entire money issue for the SL on its head.

Or they might have found the resources to stay afloat.

Yeah the War is over with the Largest Fleet in known space. Now they can build down and worry about locating the MAlign who's fleet is much smaller than the GAs. This is supported by the textev that the GA has at this time. Yes, they would have manned them by racking up debt out the butt. But they don't need to do that now and they can't justify doing that. It's the whole point we've all been trying to make to you. All the evidence in the book that the GA has clearly indicates the MAlign has a small fleet, additionally the GA still has approximately 600 SD(P)s when you combine all the components together. They don't need anymore at this moment. They've been at full war footing for like 40 years. People want a break.

The GA isn't sitting on it's hands, its trying to locate the MAlign and push it's own R&D. What it's also not going to do is waste money on building SD(P)s it can't justify. Tell what about the attacks the MAlign as perpetrated that indicated they have a large fleet presence?

Sigs wrote:

ywing14 wrote:
They receive protection with 1 nodal force. The war with the Peeps and RHN proved rather convincingly that splitting ships up into penny packets to picket star systems wasn't going to protect systems in the long run if the enemy was willing to hit them in sufficient strength. Spreading your ships all over the place serves no purpose other than defeat in detail.

Somehow I doubt 3rd Fleet was the only Nodal Force the RHN had deployed if the potential target list extended to a couple of dozen systems.

The SEM isn't fighting for it's life anymore. The MAlign was just looking to get SEM and RoH out of its way so it could bring genetic manipulation to the mainstream.

And now what they will leave them alone after killing 70 millions of their people? I doubt the MA has anything of the sort in mind.

It doesn't need to destroy the Manties to do that. It just needs them pruned back a bit. That was the point of their strategy. Use them to break up the league and damage the SEM to the point it couldn't respond effectively to the MA. It's now fighting to discover what the MAlign is up to. When they were fighting the SL more SD(P)s made sense. Now they are not. They need to shift resources to things which are more important such as finding Darius since they know something like it exists, finding the MAlign, and figuring out an answer to the spider drive. Otherwise those ships serve no purpose and are as useless as an SL SD.

So what put everything else on hold until the MA is found and you can find your answer to the spider drive? I can see it, we found the MA but we don't have the fleet to attack them, we will be building a massive invasion fleet since we now have the MA's address, I mean we will need a few years to do so after we find them but they will have to patiently wait... right?

They've already lost the Hypatia and Beowulf. How can you say they haven't lost systems?

At what point did the SLN or the MA take possession of either one of those systems? Plus one of them was not even part of the GA at the time...

You're the one who stated Hypatia was essentially part of the GA in your previous statement and then also stated the SL hadn't lost any systems. In fact both Beowulf's and Hypatia's referendum for succession passed.

They will have a fleet. the GA has at least 600 SDs at the moment. it doesn't need all 600 to destroy Darius. Maybe 100 SDs and a fleet colliers stuffed with RD drones and Apollo pods. But if they can't detect the spider drive it won't matter if they send 100 or 1000 SDs to Darius. I don't understand what you do or don't consider a fleet? 8th Fleet only had a squadron of SDs in it and still reeked havoc on the RHN for a while. You make it sound like there are literally thousands of MAlign SDs secretly waiting to invade every single GA star system at the moment. There is no evidence to support that, but there is evidence to support the contrary. Maybe the GA will build a few SDs a year something like 2 or 3 squadrons. But there's no reason to build 600-800 SDs in addition to what they already have. Lighter units are what they need to scout systems and escort commerce. Piracy is going to off the hook in the shell and protectorates.

I would like to repeat that the MAlign works under similar economic constraints as the GA. Darius is a single system economy. Unless it trades actively, it's growth is limited by productivity and population. The system requires investment in the population to maintain productivity. Those investments will soak up a good deal of the system's economic activity. What capacity remains will support the armed services and R&D. The larger the population of Darius, the higher the percentage of its economy is needed to support the population as more and more space habitats are used.

There is only so much that a single system can produce. The GA will has more than 300 systems at the end of UH. When we next visit the Honorverse, that Alliance will likely have in excess of 500. At least 50-60 of the 200 or so incremental systems will be Core world's that have associated historically with Beowulf. Darius alone can't compete with that. If they remain in solitude, they won't ever pose an existential threat to the GA nations. The more they cooperate with the RF, the greater the chances they will be discovered. Unless they cooperate at significant levels, the combination of the MAlign and RF won't be able to defeat the GA. The more agents they send in to the GA, the greater the chance that such an agent will be caught and the nanos countered. It'll take many autopsies. However, if the MAlign sends enough agents, Beowulf will figure it out one autopsy at a time.

Darius, then can't completely dive into a black hole and disappear. They have to find that balance of espionage, economic cooperation and military coordination with the RF. That means they will leave bread crumbs for someone -Plays with Fire and Fire Watch- to look for.

Sigs wrote:

Joat42 wrote:"With limited tools, single-minded people apply them inappropriately or indiscriminately"

Or as the proverb goes: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

I usually hope for the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised. You on the other hand strike me as someone who hopes for the best and prepares for the best...

If you have no idea what the other guy is planning, having the most firepower on your side seems like a pretty solid idea to me. Having to little in the way of firepower when you need it just gets your people killed unnecessarily.

Not really, I usually refer to myself as a pessimistic optimist but I'm also a realist. Just going for the biggest, most expensive hammer is not always the best solution.

Your expectations on what navy the SEM can realistically build and support is way out of proportion what its population are prepared to pay for, and had they proceeded with building up the navy after the SL was "defeated" I can guarantee that the current administration would be out of a job very quickly and be replaced with an administration more amenable to the peoples will.

From the book it's evident that there is no immediate danger of naval attacks from the MAlign for a very long time. Their plan didn't work out as they expected but taking that as proof they are going to pursue active naval engagements with the SEM/GA is quite a jump.

And if you had bothered yourself with thinking a bit you would soon realize that so far the MAlign has only engaged in asymmetric or proxy warfare. You can pour extreme amounts of money and resources into trying protecting yourself 100% against that - but it would ultimately be futile and ruinous.

Sigs wrote:

pappilon wrote:
How many MAN/RF warships did the MAlign use in the Battle of Beowulf to destroy Mycroft and 3 habitat stations? How many ...anything would it have taken to prevent the loss of those civilian lives?

Sigs wrote:What about the next time? What happens when they decide to come out in the open?

They came out exactly once in what ...600 years, 1000? And then only because of the totally unexpected. Operation Beatrice happened, and they saw an opportunity to advance their plan by 20 years. As it turned out it failed spectacularly and their plan is now ashes.

They have no timetable, they are not looking to conquer the galaxy, or the Solaran League or even Torch. They can play the long game and make another 600 year plan and pull a mountain over their little rabbit hole. You can't beat an idea with bullets, even very big ones.

pappilon wrote:You are trying to arm yourself against an enemy who has no desire to have a military confrontation.

Sigs wrote:You assume that he has no desire for military confrontation. If that were the case they wouldn't have spend the last few hundred years or so hatching their plan or plan on building large numbers of Leonard Detweiler class ships and they definitely wouldn't be counting on the RF navy.

All textev shows they do not do direct military confrontation they use minimun force for maximum effort. They use the RoH and SEM against each other, then use the SL against the SEM. Yes they did Oyster Bay. See above.

pappilon]Its entire focus is world domination through subversion, not military conquest. And it is not the entire military might of Beowulf hat is its enemy, but the billions of warm bodies that are not "genies". [/quote]

[quote="Sigs wrote:Now that their plan has gone up in smoke what do they do? Fight for their beliefs or surrender?

Same thing they been doing for the previous 600 years. They are not in a life or death struggle, they are waiting for the correct time to strike again. AGAIN nobody knows exactly who they are, where they are, who, if anybody, thir allies are. They are virtually invisible except for three footprints on a beach with the neap tide coming in.

They have the time to wait and watch, continue their scheming and maneuvering. They do not have to do anything Until their location has been found.


[quote'+pappilon"]The real war to be fought can not be fought with SD(p)s. Yes, they will be needed for the few and far between military confrontations. But the MAlign sees military confrontation as the last phase of a much more subtle political conflict.

Sigs wrote:What exactly do they plan on using the large number of Leonard Detweiler class ships for? Trade?
Read Chapter 38 of Mission of Honor and tell me that the MA is not planning on building a fleet for war.

If I read the text correctly their real navy is the Renaissance Factor. all the Lenny Ds are for is exactly what they did at Manticore, make the initial salvos and GTHOD while the RF navy picks up the pieces.

pappilon wrote:You cannot build enough ships of any class to defeat the MAlign. No matter how awful an idea is, it cannot be defeated by raw strength.

Sigs wrote:So you ask them nicely? Is that the plan?

Well, to defeat them militarily is how you defeat the Masadans militarily. You make sure absolutely every one of them is on planet then you destroy the planet with KEWs. Because if yiu leave even one of them alive they will grow a new population of revanchists and come after you again. And fot the MAlign, you not only have to find their new world you have to iddentify every one of their allied worlds and you have to totally destroy every one of them

Is that your plan?

But Sigs, the GA already has a fleet of SD(p)s... IIRC, the number we have been using is about 800 units. There is no reason to believe that I can see that what is on hand doesn't represent massive overkill.

Nor do we have any assurance at all that we can take those SDs and properly use them against the Lenny Dets as long as the issue with stealth continues.

In short, what in the dickens do you think you're going to be able to accomplish?

As far as building light units, the mission is easy to define...commerce protection, anti piracy work, showing the flag, selling to systems in the Verge for maintaining order on their own turf... missions like Zavala's mission to Saltash or Terekov's to Mobius. In short, any mission that doesn't require a sledge hammer. I would like to see lots of lighter units...with streak drives and Mark 16s...

During the Havenite wars, building SD(p)s at a breakneak pace made sense for both sides since they were trying to survive against an enemy whose capabilities were pretty much out in the open and known.

But that is not the situation in the here and now. We haven't established that an SD(p) can even survive in combat against what the MA can throw at it from stealth...which makes building more of them a case of "doing something" even if we have no idea that the something we are doing is the right something.

Don

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