[SPOILERS] _Uncompromising Honor_ Commentary

I had been doing summaries of previous titles, but I am not satisfied with what I did for _Uncompromising Honor_. The comments that would had been associated with that are presented below:

Comments

(note on comments - comment headers taken directly from the text are enclosed by quote marks)

1) “a mathematician”

Leonhard Euler was perhaps the foremost mathematician in the Europe c. 1730-1780CE. He wrote many important papers on a broad range of mathematical subjects, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler> for more information. For example, he was either the creator or an important adaptor for much of the current mathematical notation standards.

2) Sabotaged Surrender

This was discussed in chapter 24 of _A Rising Thunder_ (after Admiral Yu raised the question), but neither Honor nor Hamish (both were present in chapter 24) mention this when discussing the recording found on the “Leonard Euler”.

3 ) “dinosaurs are extinct”

This is a popular belief, but arguably untrue; the taxonomists are in general agreement that birds are directly descended from dinosaurs (and thus dinosaurs aren’t really extinct).

4) The bull fight at the Prime-Ajay Hyper Bridge

Commodore Lessem used bull fighting terms for his ops plans in the Prime-Ajay Hyper Bridge “battles”. Estocada is the kill strike; Descabello (defined in text) is used if the Estocada was fumbled. Picador is a goading attack. BTW, I say “battles” because, despite the task force commander’s best attempts, the SLN task force was led by the nose into the slaughter.

5) Rufino Chernyshev is in two places.

A scene, set in Darius, supposedly in August, in _Uncompromising Honor_ has him on Darius. In chapter 69 (supposed set in September) of _Shadow of Victory_, Rufino appears to be still on Mesa. Apparently, he doesn’t arrived at Darius until chapter 75 of _Shadow of Victory_ (October). For that matter, at that time, Collin was still in transit (chapter 55 of _Cauldron of Ghosts_ states that Collin left Mesa in early October, or at least at the end of September). The scene with Daniel in August implies that Collin was on Darius as well. I suppose that it is possible that Rufino used a streak drive courier to make the round trip from Mesa to Darius and back, but to hand deliver one report? Doesn’t look plausible to me.

6) Vice Admiral Hajdu Gyôzô

His target is a Core World, why was he given his orders by a OFS Commissioner? The Foreign Affairs representative had to have come from Earth, was she picked up there? Or did she used a courier to join him? IIRC, Frontier Fleet has thousands of battlecruisers. So why couldn’t a force be assembled at a base closer to Hypatia then wherever the Genovese system is?

7) Operation Buccaneer Taskforce sizes

50 battle cruisers here, 100 there, pretty soon most of Frontier Fleet will be in action. For that matter, if the SLN has an excessive number of flag officers, why would a mere Vice Admiral be the commander of the 150+ warship strong task force that was sent to Hypatia?

8) Initial Action in the Battle of Hypatia

Too bad Kotouč’s taskforce didn’t have any drones in position to shred the thousands of Cataphact missile pods that the SLN had deployed. Their destruction would have resulted in many more RMN survivors (and fewer SLN survivors, unless Vice Admiral Hajdu Gyôzô leaves without doing anything, unlikely, I suspect). Also, too bad his taskforce didn’t include an Agamemnon class battlecruiser. Then he could have laid down a long line of missile pods and have drones moving down that line as they were launching missiles (all while his real ships are a safe distance away under full stealth). But that would be another wipe-out of SLN warships with minimum RMN casualties.

9) Battle of Hypatia Wrap Up

HMS "Arngrim" only had to destroy one surviving battlecruiser (only could do 5 more of the 11 that survived) before finding a sane SLN flag officer who would agree to leave without further ado.

10) the Demonic Duo

Honor’s nickname for the R&D collaboration of Sonja Hemphill and Shannon Foraker; I have thought of another nickname:
the Mad Girls (this is a reference to the Foglio’s webcomic, _Girl Genius_),

11) “single nutty scientist”

I wonder how much publicity Manticore and Haven have given to what Jack McBryde told Anton and Victor, because, it appears that Herlander Simões as the only acknowledged source of Alignment information.

12) Llandovery

Damien appears to be unaware that the island is Great Britain, not England (BTW, Llandovery is a town in Wales)

13) Collin Detweiler, I presume

I am uncertain on how Damien knows who debriefed him on Mesa after Green Pines (he did admit that he heard no names at the time). The only way I think anybody outside of the Alignment would have heard of that name was from Jack McBryde. There was mention of a photo (but it could have been of any of the 6 Detweiler clones).

14) the Purge

The vetting of the Manticore ministry staffs (with tree cats monitoring the reactions) had just started as of September 1922PD but had already uncovered several agents (only the ones who knew that they were reporting to Mesa experienced sudden “natural” deaths). Alignment security has noticed the losses in sources, but hasn’t picked up on the tree cat connection.

15) “losses speak for hard his people fought”

That is incorrect (and Kingsford should know that). Heavy losses indicate great effort only if you are attacking. Otherwise, it is a measure of how much firepower you are facing.

16) Plays with Fire

Firebrand must be Damien Harahap’s True Name.

17) Grand Alliance Inactivity

Gweon argued that this meant that the RMN had a MDM missile shortage. While they might had a problem with Apollo control missiles, they still had vast stocks of MDMs (Gweon’s Alignment superiors might not be aware that Apollo was just the older MDMs with a control missile, but they weren’t interested in pointing out that the older missiles were potent enough). Of course, the real reason of the inactivity was the Harrington plan (after all, the RHN could have lead the attacks).

18) “It’s that goddamned loose warhead Gold Peak’s fault.”

Benjamin’s brothers are forgetting what Albrecht said back when the event wave of Victor and Anton’s report (as well as the Manticore-Haven peace treaty) hit Mesa. He said the mess was nobody’s fault; and if it was somebody’s, it was his and his alone. The arrival of 12th and Second Fleets at Mesa was a direct response to Alignment activities (which, by the way, is why I have been saying that Operation Houdini should have been activated when Oyster Bay was activated, because there were Mesa fingerprints all over New Tuscany and Crandall’s disaster at Spindle).

19) the Harringtons are a lost Alpha Line!

The Meyerdahl gene modifications have a providence far older than the founding of Mesa. Thus, any Harringtons in the Alignment had to have been recruited back when Leonard Detweiler was still arguing with people on Beowulf (before his self-exile). He (or his associates) must have looking for allies amongst the genies on various Core worlds. For that matter, I believe that the Alignment would have had to drop the Harrington line anyway (once they adopted an absolutist strategy), because the Harringtons appear to have too much empathy. BTW, I really doubt that Alignment ever made additional modifications on Honor’s ancestors, because Allison should have noticed any.

20) Destroyed Breadcrumbs

One consequence of blowing up every facility on Mesa that the Alignment had used covertly was that they identified locations whose history (going back centuries) needed very close examination. Were Colin’s people thorough enough in their research in identifying all possible breadcrumbs?

21) Daud al-Fanudahi’s Despair

A war of mutual atrocities is what the Detweiler boys on Darius want.

22) Dead Patsies tell no Tales

Let us consider Gamma line product Harold Simmons-Gilchrest, inner Alignment agent, unwitting suicide bomber - perhaps the Detweilers only count members of other Alpha lines as real people.

23) Hamish and company assumed dead

The meeting that Elizabeth had about what to do about the Beowulf atrocity took place 18 hours after the destruction of Beowulf Alpha. On one hand, it should had been known that Hamish and company were somewhere way out on a boom, on the other hand, they weren’t wearing skin suits (and hadn’t been found).

24) The Other Purge

Gaddis doesn’t have tree cats to point out people to interrogate, but dropping names seems to activate the kill switch that the Alignment installed in its agents (but did he have enough names for ALL the Alignment agents in the Admiralty Building?).

25) Wodoslawski’s Bolthole

If she was the Alignment agent at the top level of the bureaucracy, it might be a grave. The Alignment doesn’t seem to be interested in repurposing people who don’t have an assignment anymore.

26) Honor’s return

Supposedly, round 2 of the Alignment war will start in about 2 decades. With the children (unless Hamish and Honor will have more spread out over a decade) about to leave home; Honor can’t claim the mommy track as an excuse (to herself).

Questions:

1) What happens to all of the wormholes captured because of Operation Lacoon II?

IMHO, the ones taken from the Solarian League members will be returned. The ones captured in the Protectorates and elsewhere in the Verge and Fringe will be returned only to governments that reflect the will of the populations of those star systems (OFS or Transtellar clients need not apply).

2) Was the bombing of the Beowulf habitats a blunder?

I think it was; it declared, in a completely unambiguous fashion, that an unknown party (not SL, Manticore, Haven, or any other known stellar power) was committing atrocities. Perhaps it will sink in that the same unknown was responsible for the WMD attacks on Mesa.

3) Will the Ghost Hunters receive Grand Alliance help in finding Alignment moles?

Probably, but only after the Alliance intelligence agencies realize that the Ghost Hunters exist.

4) How successful will the new Solarian League constitution be?

I can’t see how any possible constitution can permanently prevent a bureaucratic takeover. The elected politicians will come and go. The bureaucrats will stay. In the long run, everything will fall into their hands. However, the long run should be measured in centuries.

5) Where is Darius?

The discussion in September 1922PD between Benjamin and Daniel Detweiler (about the Silver Bullets) told us that Darius is 130 lightyears from the Felix system (which is 10 light years from Mannerheim). It should be fairly distant from any other settled system because otherwise somebody could just drop in just to see if anything interesting was there. I speculated in the past that Haven’s Bolthole was outside explored space; while that was shown to be false, it could be true for Darius (certainly if I was the head of a multi-generational conspiracy of would-be galactic overlords, I would avoid potential nosey neighbors).

6) Did the “Star Galleon” deliver additional covert cargo?

Besides the embargoed cargo (which was the cover for the distribution of the Silver Bullets), could it have delivered the bombs? It did pick up additional cargo at the rendezvous when it received the final instructions. if that cargo was the bombs, I am curious why nobody noticed that those cargo items had been sitting around for weeks.

7) Why am I so persistent in asserting that Operation Houdini should have been activated earlier?

Because I think that the Detweilers were suffering from hubris when they used Manpower cover to setup New Tuscany to be the spark for a Solarian League-Manticore war. There are things an onion can not hide. The way that the Monica intrigue went pear-shaped on them should have been a warning (Isabel kept talking about Murphy, but either she didn’t advise Albrecht into activating Houdini as a precaution, or he didn’t accept her advice). In fact, in his first appearance (in _At All Costs_), Albrecht claimed to be worried about potential RMN bases in the Talbot sector. In my humble opinion, if you are worried about possible military threats, you avoid attracting their attention. And, if you can’t avoid that, you get out of Dodge.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
7) Why am I so persistent in asserting that Operation Houdini should have been activated earlier?

Because I think that the Detweilers were suffering from hubris when they used Manpower cover to setup New Tuscany to be the spark for a Solarian League-Manticore war. There are things an onion can not hide. The way that the Monica intrigue went pear-shaped on them should have been a warning (Isabel kept talking about Murphy, but either she didn’t advise Albrecht into activating Houdini as a precaution, or he didn’t accept her advice). In fact, in his first appearance (in _At All Costs_), Albrecht claimed to be worried about potential RMN bases in the Talbot sector. In my humble opinion, if you are worried about possible military threats, you avoid attracting their attention. And, if you can’t avoid that, you get out of Dodge.

Hey, Bob. This comment by Albrect has bothered me from the beginning. Let's face it, at any time in the last 200 years, Manticore could send squadrons of Capital Ships to Mesa and force it's will. Instead, they have always played realpolitik and attacked Mesa's Proxies when they cross Manticore's path, and usually not by active hunting of said proxies.

So why was Albrect suddenly concerned about a wormhole which brought Manticore a few dozen lightyears closer to his front door. There still was months of travel protecting him, and no reason why their activities should run into each other sufficient to change Manticore's stance. A smart animal would have watched what was unfolding until it was time to strike. Instead he actively played around and moved up the time scale on multiple fronts.

Attacking from the dark, both literally and figuratively, then pulling back into the hole, would have worked better than leaving a trail, and signatures.

That doesn't make for as interesting a story, but it would have made more sense to a non-megalomaniac.

Theemile wrote:Hey, Bob. This comment by Albrect has bothered me from the beginning. Let's face it, at any time in the last 200 years, Manticore could send squadrons of Capital Ships to Mesa and force it's will. Instead, they have always played realpolitik and attacked Mesa's Proxies when they cross Manticore's path, and usually not by active hunting of said proxies.

So why was Albrect suddenly concerned about a wormhole which brought Manticore a few dozen lightyears closer to his front door. There still was months of travel protecting him, and no reason why their activities should run into each other sufficient to change Manticore's stance. A smart animal would have watched what was unfolding until it was time to strike. Instead he actively played around and moved up the time scale on multiple fronts.

Attacking from the dark, both literally and figuratively, then pulling back into the hole, would have worked better than leaving a trail, and signatures.

That doesn't make for as interesting a story, but it would have made more sense to a non-megalomaniac.

You seem to have a good point about the distance to Mesa not seeming like as major a factor as Detweiler indicated.

I'd actually see Talbott as more of a worrying positive example than a risk due to distance. If Manticore is able to smoothly integrate the Talbott quadrant into the new SEM and show that the planets are happy and economically improving after they'd requested membership that might make them look even more attractive as allies or partners if/when the League comes apart. Plus it puts them closer to a bunch more of the shell and verge making it practical for those systems to look to Manticore rather than the carefully prepared RF worlds.

Preventing Manticore from acquiring Talbott, especially if they're made to look militarily expansionist in the bargain, theoretically helps preserve the very long running plan to get ex-League worlds to join the RF.


It still backfired pretty spectacularly - but at least that concern makes somewhat more sense than worrying about the fact that they're sitting a few weeks so closer in transit time to Mesa.

Theemile wrote:Hey, Bob. This comment by Albrect has bothered me from the beginning. Let's face it, at any time in the last 200 years, Manticore could send squadrons of Capital Ships to Mesa and force it's will. Instead, they have always played realpolitik and attacked Mesa's Proxies when they cross Manticore's path, and usually not by active hunting of said proxies.

So why was Albrect suddenly concerned about a wormhole which brought Manticore a few dozen lightyears closer to his front door. There still was months of travel protecting him,

No, they couldn't have. Roger III's buildup only started some ~70 years before the Lynx terminus' discovery. Prior to that, squashing Mesa would have tied up something like a third to half the entire RMN for quite some time. Once the buildup started, Manticore was too concerned with Haven to do anything about Mesa.

The Solarian League Navy didn't become a paper tiger until ~1915. It's pretty obvious that marching a fleet through the Core(via the Beowulf terminus) would have been considered too much of a provocation of the League. So they could not rely on using that shortcut to attack and/or return. Visigoth's cooperation was not assured either.

Meaning a round-trip in hyperspace from Manticore to Mesa and back. That's something on the order of a full year, including any logistics support required. A bridge to Lynx cut this loop down to something like three or four months - similar to the hyperspace gap between Manticore and Trevor's Star(a distance Manticoran military is now accustomed to operating over).

Not a reduction of a "few dozen light years" - more like five hundred light years cut off seven hundred. With Lynx, Mesa was only slightly more difficult to reach than Haven via Trevor's Star.

Even if there was the political will to commit to this, forcing regime and cultural change on Mesa was always going to be a messy, lengthy process requiring large amounts of manpower. Note - occupation is required to make sure the slaving industry is thoroughly dismantled, rather than "decommissioned" and/or moved somewhere else. Can't possibly trust the Mesan government with that!

Lynx gave Manticore a reliable shortcut. Talbott, if successfully integrated, was a potential source of occupation manpower. More recently, the Manticoran establishment was definitely less opposed to expansion and indeed, as a byproduct of Alignment machinations, Manticore's most anti-expansion factions were about to be thoroughly discredited.

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:Hey, Bob. This comment by Albrect has bothered me from the beginning. Let's face it, at any time in the last 200 years, Manticore could send squadrons of Capital Ships to Mesa and force it's will. Instead, they have always played realpolitik and attacked Mesa's Proxies when they cross Manticore's path, and usually not by active hunting of said proxies.

So why was Albrect suddenly concerned about a wormhole which brought Manticore a few dozen lightyears closer to his front door. There still was months of travel protecting him,

No, they couldn't have. Roger III's buildup only started some ~70 years before the Lynx terminus' discovery. Prior to that, squashing Mesa would have tied up something like a third to half the entire RMN for quite some time. Once the buildup started, Manticore was too concerned with Haven to do anything about Mesa.

The Solarian League Navy didn't become a paper tiger until ~1915. It's pretty obvious that marching a fleet through the Core(via the Beowulf terminus) would have been considered too much of a provocation of the League. So they could not rely on using that shortcut to attack and/or return. Visigoth's cooperation was not assured either.

Meaning a round-trip in hyperspace from Manticore to Mesa and back. That's something on the order of a full year, including any logistics support required. A bridge to Lynx cut this loop down to something like three or four months - similar to the hyperspace gap between Manticore and Trevor's Star(a distance Manticoran military is now accustomed to operating over).

Not a reduction of a "few dozen light years" - more like five hundred light years cut off seven hundred. With Lynx, Mesa was only slightly more difficult to reach than Haven via Trevor's Star.

Even if there was the political will to commit to this, forcing regime and cultural change on Mesa was always going to be a messy, lengthy process requiring large amounts of manpower. Note - occupation is required to make sure the slaving industry is thoroughly dismantled, rather than "decommissioned" and/or moved somewhere else. Can't possibly trust the Mesan government with that!

Lynx gave Manticore a reliable shortcut. Talbott, if successfully integrated, was a potential source of occupation manpower. More recently, the Manticoran establishment was definitely less opposed to expansion and indeed, as a byproduct of Alignment machinations, Manticore's most anti-expansion factions were about to be thoroughly discredited.

It was done before -The accord with Silesia after death of Saganami stripped 1/2 of HomeFleet (8 BBs, 4 DNs) away for about 6 months. (Remember, there was no Basilisk Terminus back then). At any point after that, a similar maneuver could have taken place. Yes, the SLN could have interfered, but they too did sign the Cherwell convention, and the RMN political machine would have made a big deal about any intervention and non- assistance.

Theemile wrote:It was done before -The accord with Silesia after death of Saganami stripped 1/2 of HomeFleet (8 BBs, 4 DNs) away for about 6 months. (Remember, there was no Basilisk Terminus back then). At any point after that, a similar maneuver could have taken place. Yes, the SLN could have interfered, but they too did sign the Cherwell convention, and the RMN political machine would have made a big deal about any intervention and non- assistance.

That's a fair point, but even so - the furthest part of Silesia(without any wormhole usage) from Manticore is no more than 300 LY. Mesa is approximatly 700 LY. The year I estimated a hyperspace invasion of Mesa would take does not include any time spent enforcing terms.

The SL wasn't anywhere near between Silesia and Manticore.

And despite rolling over and signing the Cherwell, Silesia continued to be a troubled region with active slave trading and pirate activity. Not very effective in the mid to long term.

Both of the SKM's historical invasions(San Martin and Silesia) focused on forcing the current regime to mildly reform. That option doesn't seem viable to me in the case of Mesa.

I don't think the threat of the League can be dismissed so easily - OFS would have been in a much better position to access Mesa and adminster its rehabiliation, pushing Manticore out. Then the Mesan corporations can escape and continue selling slaves.

It would not be quick, but it would start with the Mesa Terminus. Before ~1850, the RMN could not possibly hold that in force against the pressure of Visigoth and the League's interest. After then, they needed the wallers to deter Haven - and there are few places further away from Haven than Mesa.

munroburton wrote:

Theemile wrote:It was done before -The accord with Silesia after death of Saganami stripped 1/2 of HomeFleet (8 BBs, 4 DNs) away for about 6 months. (Remember, there was no Basilisk Terminus back then). At any point after that, a similar maneuver could have taken place. Yes, the SLN could have interfered, but they too did sign the Cherwell convention, and the RMN political machine would have made a big deal about any intervention and non- assistance.

That's a fair point, but even so - the furthest part of Silesia(without any wormhole usage) from Manticore is no more than 300 LY. Mesa is approximatly 700 LY. The year I estimated a hyperspace invasion of Mesa would take does not include any time spent enforcing terms.

The SL wasn't anywhere near between Silesia and Manticore.

And despite rolling over and signing the Cherwell, Silesia continued to be a troubled region with active slave trading and pirate activity. Not very effective in the mid to long term.

Both of the SKM's historical invasions(San Martin and Silesia) focused on forcing the current regime to mildly reform. That option doesn't seem viable to me in the case of Mesa.

I don't think the threat of the League can be dismissed so easily - OFS would have been in a much better position to access Mesa and adminster its rehabiliation, pushing Manticore out. Then the Mesan corporations can escape and continue selling slaves.

It would not be quick, but it would start with the Mesa Terminus. Before ~1850, the RMN could not possibly hold that in force against the pressure of Visigoth and the League's interest. After then, they needed the wallers to deter Haven - and there are few places further away from Haven than Mesa.

Good points, but my main point was why was Albrect suddenly worried about Manticore being slightly closer? They still had to plow through SLN turf to attack Mesa, paper tiger status or not. And Manticore has shown no interest in actually dealing with Mesa once and for good.

So Why was he worried? And if he was, why didn't he keeep his head further down rather than commiting to actions which would bring the spotlight to Mesa. And if the intention was to ultimately force Manticore's hand, why wasn't Houdini done earlier?

munroburton wrote:That's a fair point, but even so - the furthest part of Silesia(without any wormhole usage) from Manticore is no more than 300 LY. Mesa is approximatly 700 LY. The year I estimated a hyperspace invasion of Mesa would take does not include any time spent enforcing terms.

Isn't that 700 LY assuming that Manticore wouldn't choose to use the Beowulf terminus to reach Mesa? That's not as close to Mesa as Lynx, but it's still cuts off something like 3/4 the distance from Manticore to Mesa.

I guess there's some risk that doing that would increase provocation to the League, but at the end of the day Manticore owns that terminus and they'd be moving their navy through it then through interstellar space to reach an outlaw system that isn't a member of the League nor does it have defensive treatise with the League...

Sure that doesn't seem likely, but IMHO it doesn't seem much more likely that they'd immediately go after Mesa from the newly found Lynx terminus.

Theemile wrote:Good points, but my main point was why was Albrect suddenly worried about Manticore being slightly closer?

I suspect it was more "Manticore is messing about in MY playground" that "Manticore is too close."

Before the Lynx terminus was explored Manticore had no interest in what happened in the Talbott Quadrant and surrounding space.

After Lynx was explored, Manticore was privy to all the gossip and intrigues in an area where Mesa was "The Big Fish." It wasn't physical proximity, but information flow that made Manticore's presence a threat to Mesa; Manticore would know more and care more about what was going on around the Lynx Terminus.

Jonathan_S wrote:

munroburton wrote:That's a fair point, but even so - the furthest part of Silesia(without any wormhole usage) from Manticore is no more than 300 LY. Mesa is approximatly 700 LY. The year I estimated a hyperspace invasion of Mesa would take does not include any time spent enforcing terms.

Isn't that 700 LY assuming that Manticore wouldn't choose to use the Beowulf terminus to reach Mesa? That's not as close to Mesa as Lynx, but it's still cuts off something like 3/4 the distance from Manticore to Mesa.

I guess there's some risk that doing that would increase provocation to the League, but at the end of the day Manticore owns that terminus and they'd be moving their navy through it then through interstellar space to reach an outlaw system that isn't a member of the League nor does it have defensive treatise with the League...

Sure that doesn't seem likely, but IMHO it doesn't seem much more likely that they'd immediately go after Mesa from the newly found Lynx terminus.

Too provocative, yes. Whatever the legal niceties regarding Manticore's ownership of Beowulf's terminus are, I can't imagine the League standing idle whilst a foreign nation sends a heavy force of warships through League space without permission.

Another point I hadn't quite strung together is that without also using the Visigoth terminus to invade Mesa(and therefore a wormhole assault), an invasion force moving through Beowulf would alert the core of League space, which then would inevitably tip off Mesa with enough time for the Alignment and corporations to flee.

Theemile wrote:Good points, but my main point was why was Albrect suddenly worried about Manticore being slightly closer? They still had to plow through SLN turf to attack Mesa, paper tiger status or not. And Manticore has shown no interest in actually dealing with Mesa once and for good.

So Why was he worried? And if he was, why didn't he keeep his head further down rather than commiting to actions which would bring the spotlight to Mesa. And if the intention was to ultimately force Manticore's hand, why wasn't Houdini done earlier?

According to the maps I can find, Lynx offers Manticore a route to Mesa which barely intrudes into the Verge and skirts the outer protectorates. It's a very different approach compared to popping out past Beowulf's newsies in the middle of the core.

We'll have to agree to disagree if you still think Manticore attacking Mesa via Beowulf before, say 1900, was plausible. If that was considered too risky due to upsetting the League, then Lynx T's discovery actually improved Manticore's unilateral access to Mesa substantially, changing Albrecht's calculations.