Has anyone else decided to root against Manticore?

Oh, it’s pretty clear the war is over. For now. That was more of a “one of many things the Sollies could have done rather than see who’s walls could smash each other at max range.”

I can only hope than in a generation when they fight the Renaissance Factor, the Manties are not given divine perfection.

Particularly because the Streak drive means the RF can out OODA the Manties most places.

GloriousRuse wrote:Oh, it’s pretty clear the war is over. For now. That was more of a “one of many things the Sollies could have done rather than see who’s walls could smash each other at max range.”

I can only hope than in a generation when they fight the Renaissance Factor, the Manties are not given divine perfection.

Particularly because the Streak drive means the RF can out OODA the Manties most places.

But we expect all of the GA to also have the streak drive by then, due to Herlander Simões.

Julia Minor wrote:Unless I've missed something that states SL Core Worlds were forced to get all their system-defense tech from the Sol System, Beowulf already had missile assembly lines running for their own forces. Yes, they would have to adjust the lines for Alliance tech, but they already knew how to build "a relativistic speed travelling pile of fusion reactors, electronics, and nuclear warheads". We're not talking about Scotty dropping the formula for transparent aluminum on a 20th century plant manager.

I'm late to this thread, and some of this was already covered, sorry for reiterating.

There are 4 major breakthroughs that RMN Apollo missiles have than Beowulf's pre-GA missiles didn't - and three of them seem like they should be a non-trivial engineering task to start manufacturing.

1) Microfusion power plants; Beowulf, like everyone else, used extremely high power capacitors to run their missiles - it's only the DDM and later MDM designs from Manticore than use fusion power

2) The baffle that manages to shield the extra standby drive rings from being destructively interfered with by the active ring. The single breakthrough of gravametric design that enables true multi-drive missiles.

3) The FTL transciever in the Apollo control missile. An Nth generation high bandwidth FTL transmitter married to a sufficiently sensitive rear facing grav sensor to enable the FTL control of the missiles

4) The improved grav lensing that significantly increases the throughput from the fusion bomb through the lasing rods to the target.

Not the mention the miscellaneous improvements that led to a roughly 60% increase in standoff distance; improved sensors, lasing rod pointing, etc.

So Beowulf was missing a number of key technologies critical to producing the missiles they started rapidly rolling off the lines.


On the other hand I guess with nano-level fabricators the right instructions are enough to enable correct production because if they cover what to do for every molecule in every critical area then you shouldn't run into a FOGBANK issue.

We know the impellers would be critical because they're packed solid with high density molecular circuitry and power channels to let them generate the grav forces to form a wedge - and I'd assume the baffle and transceiver are of a similar layout complexity; simply more innovative layout. But if an impeller, baffle, or FLT tranceiver is literally laid down molecule by molecule by nanites then all the original ingredients, even the trace ones, would be known. So therefore a nanite fab of similar capabilities should be able to lay down the new designs of that same order of complexity without error or omitted trace molecules.

tlb wrote:The tightrope any author walks is getting the protagonists to win in a realistic manner. Part of the realism is ensuring that winning is manageable, but involves real struggle. The complaint here is that at least after Oyster Bay everything was too easy (as though there was a limit on the number of mainline books to follow). Decades long war with large neighbor? A quick alliance results when weary opponents discover that a hidden adversary has been manipulating events.

To be fair that war was over even if it hadn't transformed into an alliance.

An attack on someone's home system had pretty much be cast an a nearly unthinkable all-or-nothing risk from at least SVW if not before. So when Haven's restored Republic felt cornered, rolled the dice, and failed to come up with a win it shouldn't have been a surprise that the war would shortly be over; with 8th fleet dictating terms. The only surprise should have been that the terms were so favorable.

(And, as it turned out, Haven's alliance was hardly a critical factor in the ultimate confrontation with the League. A sufficiently trustable surrender would have worked almost as well; though with much less margin for error)


Still it did render ART and UC somewhat short in narrative tension. Especially since the MAlign, the real enemy, barely stuck their noses out of their burrow - so Manticore was left to just smack some sense into the deluded impotent fools who were the MAlign's cat's paws.

GloriousRuse wrote:I should be more specific:

The pacific war is the story of a side that initially finds itself outclassed in terms of equipment and personnel that opens the war with a string of defeats. The other side starts at a near peak of capability and experiences nothing but victory until Coral Sea.

The initially outclassed side adapts tactics and operations sufficient to overcome its disadvantages enough to stalemate strategically. Then the industrial base kicks in; in some tech fields they can compete, in some they can dominate, and in some they are behind...but it doesn’t matter because the sheer weight of good-enough weapons is more than sufficient to drive the smaller side under.

Which side would be the Sollies here is fairly self evident.

The level of overmatch matters.

If the USN state of the art was still their ships from the Spanish-American War then the Japanese would have steamrolled the USN (at least everywhere that their shoestring of logistic support could let them reach) even if the USN had hundreds of such armored ships coming off the ways. Smart tactics can only overcome so much technological inferiority. The invention of carriers and attack aircraft, air spot, director fire control, improvements in armor, steam turbines, and self-propelled torpedoes (not to mention working watertight doors and damage control) simply are too much to overcome. The US ships would be slower, carry much shorter ranged and far less accurate weapons, be totally naked to air attack, and be far more fragile then their WWII Japanese counterparts. Like the SLN their only hope would be to somehow manage, with their inferior speed and reconnaissance, to surprise their opponents at point-blank range in overwhelming numbers. That's not something you can count on achieving often - and every time you fail your fleet gets cut to shreds by the faster more powerful opponent.

The only way the US could win that is if it was able to refuse to surrender long (estimate 6-8 years) enough to design entirely new next-generation ships and get them built in sufficient number despite Japanese raids of the continental shipyards. (The saving grace in even such a technologically lopsided conflict is Japan would still far too few soldiers to successfully invade the mainland US)

But in actual history the USN was somewhat behind in a few areas and ahead in a number of others. It really isn't a good analog for the SLN by the time it confronts Manticore.

You have to look at Manticore creating Lacoon I and II as options in facing more than the SL in a war or deteriorting towards war situation. It was apparently one of a number of existing possible operations that could be used and it could have been used against Haven before PRH intially attached if a) most MMM trade had already been driven from Haven controlled space by tariffs and artificial pricing by Haven such that MMM and others couldn't make a profit sailing into what were effectivly embargoed areas. Apply the same logic against the IAE or other major (at least in the Haven Quadrant) etc.

Why did Manticore launch Lacoon I? To remove Manticoran flagged vessels from SL or SL (via OFS) controlled space. That affected both direct MMM ships operated by Manticoran Companies and ships leased (and see to primarily be operated by Manticoran citizens) to non-Manticoran companies like various Transtellar trading companies. ONE of the effects--which was also always intended to be there- was to strip the targeted area (the SL) of freight capacity which worked on several levels. There is the whole idea of screwing up all the trade logistics withing the League and Protectorates etc to cut into the SLN's ability to produce and move supplies and other materials....secrews with the logistics of products AND mobility. Beyond that, it was meant to cause a rather quick storm of protests from SL Members systems and lots of non-members about the loss of capacity/profit/sales etc due to the League's policies and a growing danger of war interfearing with the BUSINEES and Livelyhoods of lots of people on the various member and non-members systems. Some of those people had real power and clout though perhaps enough to get the meaningful attention of the Mandarins without the use an actual sledgehammer to their skulls.

The Second reason for Lacoon I was the part actualy stated in the orders. Get these ships and crews out of and beyond the reach of the SL, SLN, OFS and various OFS Partner/Protectorate/Client systems so they (ships, crews and cargos) could not be used as hostages by OFS and the Mandarins etc to pressure Manticore. Better to order them home than to have to have to negotiate with various levels of governments scatterd over hundreds if not thousands of lightyears (with people negotiating in bad faith after intiating contrived situations) to get them back.
Once the ships get beyond "normal" patrol range and reach of SLN, they can be covered and protected.

Why not start running escorts for MMM ships in SL space?
Would you really want to start sending you light escorts ships into League space at a time when the SLN had been engaging in the goings on of Byng, Crandall, Monica etc? Would the League (particularly the SLN if things hadn't been hammered out and agreed to by the League Government AND the SLN beforehand) allow RMN warships to come swanning into SL space as armed protection of anybody's freighters? Aside from the insult (implied and actual) of it proclaiming that the SLN couldn't protect merchant commerce, these people have attacking your naval ships and Empire systems out in Talbot. Sending a DD or a CA or even a BC to escort a freighter to a League member system is probably begging for somebody in the League to do something that will both kill people and make matters worse. Remember, it would be the SLN that your escorts would be protecting your merchants shipping from...on their home ground. Really not good.
And, unless you set up an actual convoy system, you would be placing almost exclusively a 1/1 coverage of freighters (over all those routes) with light escorts. Sure, put some DD captain in the position of moving into orbit with a freighter over a League planet and then three CA's demand the surrender of both the warship and the freighter "in responce to the attacks on SLN ships by RMN ships in the Talbot Sector" as a precautionalry measure to insure no incidents occur here. I don't think that would go over well with either the DD's captain, the RMN in general nor anybody back at Manticore.
Don't give them the set up to create a provocation.

Brigade XO wrote:Why did Manticore launch Lacoon I? To remove Manticoran flagged vessels from SL or SL (via OFS) controlled space. That affected both direct MMM ships operated by Manticoran Companies and ships leased (and see to primarily be operated by Manticoran citizens) to non-Manticoran companies like various Transtellar trading companies. ONE of the effects--which was also always intended to be there- was to strip the targeted area (the SL) of freight capacity which worked on several levels. There is the whole idea of screwing up all the trade logistics withing the League and Protectorates etc to cut into the SLN's ability to produce and move supplies and other materials....secrews with the logistics of products AND mobility.

There was the additional effect of removing the docking and transit fees that were a large part of the League Government's funding. Whether that was an intended effect or just serendipity is unspecified; the strain on the League's budget is mentioned indirectly in one of the Madarins' strategy meetings.

Arrgggh. That’s right, they get him. How could I forget Providence dictated that the Manties could never be down tech on anything except “skulduggery?” Which may also be why I root against them...

Re: The Great White Fleet faces Yamamoto. The Pacific isn’t a perfect analogy, just an analogy. One an earlier poster said was proof of how you could never catch up in tech, as evidenced by the USN. In this case it wa spike yes out that A) they did, B) it didn’t matter because industry, and C) the d tech manages to buy some time.

In terms of overmatch, I think we are forgetting one critical thing: outside the hyper limit, who ever jumps in sets the range. And even the antiquated Sollies can bring a metric crap ton of missiles. An even halfway rational Sollie commander could offset his range disadvantage by posing the Manties a dilemma...

Use your the sheer ship numbers to ensure you have the most “jump groups” available. When attacking, jump a strike group in, roll pods. The RMN is either

A) In limit. Fine. Either long ballistic your industrial objective or a RMN target set (the SL can literally dump more missiles than the RMN has counter missiles). Yes, it’s wildly inefficient per missile. But since UH indicates buccaneer task forces carried literal millions of missiles in pods...who cares if only 0.5% hit rate by the time it’s all done. That’s still 5k+ laser head hits. That’s 50 dead wallers. Rinse and repeat.

B) The RMN meet you outside th limit. When the RMN jumps in, you know they have a vulnerable window where they can’t jump. Jump a ship with target data to your assembly area for the second force. They jump to the Manties new spot and you slaughter each other with grasers and flushing missiles in knife fight range. Lots of Sollies die. Lots of manties die. You have more Sollies.

Brigade XO wrote:You have to look at Manticore creating Lacoon I and II as options in facing more than the SL in a war or deteriorting towards war situation. It was apparently one of a number of existing possible operations that could be used and it could have been used against Haven before PRH intially attached if a) most MMM trade had already been driven from Haven controlled space by tariffs and artificial pricing by Haven such that MMM and others couldn't make a profit sailing into what were effectivly embargoed areas. Apply the same logic against the IAE or other major (at least in the Haven Quadrant) etc.

Why did Manticore launch Lacoon I? To remove Manticoran flagged vessels from SL or SL (via OFS) controlled space. That affected both direct MMM ships operated by Manticoran Companies and ships leased (and see to primarily be operated by Manticoran citizens) to non-Manticoran companies like various Transtellar trading companies. ONE of the effects--which was also always intended to be there- was to strip the targeted area (the SL) of freight capacity which worked on several levels. There is the whole idea of screwing up all the trade logistics withing the League and Protectorates etc to cut into the SLN's ability to produce and move supplies and other materials....secrews with the logistics of products AND mobility. Beyond that, it was meant to cause a rather quick storm of protests from SL Members systems and lots of non-members about the loss of capacity/profit/sales etc due to the League's policies and a growing danger of war interfearing with the BUSINEES and Livelyhoods of lots of people on the various member and non-members systems. Some of those people had real power and clout though perhaps enough to get the meaningful attention of the Mandarins without the use an actual sledgehammer to their skulls.

The Second reason for Lacoon I was the part actualy stated in the orders. Get these ships and crews out of and beyond the reach of the SL, SLN, OFS and various OFS Partner/Protectorate/Client systems so they (ships, crews and cargos) could not be used as hostages by OFS and the Mandarins etc to pressure Manticore. Better to order them home than to have to have to negotiate with various levels of governments scatterd over hundreds if not thousands of lightyears (with people negotiating in bad faith after intiating contrived situations) to get them back.
Once the ships get beyond "normal" patrol range and reach of SLN, they can be covered and protected.

Why not start running escorts for MMM ships in SL space?
Would you really want to start sending you light escorts ships into League space at a time when the SLN had been engaging in the goings on of Byng, Crandall, Monica etc? Would the League (particularly the SLN if things hadn't been hammered out and agreed to by the League Government AND the SLN beforehand) allow RMN warships to come swanning into SL space as armed protection of anybody's freighters? Aside from the insult (implied and actual) of it proclaiming that the SLN couldn't protect merchant commerce, these people have attacking your naval ships and Empire systems out in Talbot. Sending a DD or a CA or even a BC to escort a freighter to a League member system is probably begging for somebody in the League to do something that will both kill people and make matters worse. Remember, it would be the SLN that your escorts would be protecting your merchants shipping from...on their home ground. Really not good.
And, unless you set up an actual convoy system, you would be placing almost exclusively a 1/1 coverage of freighters (over all those routes) with light escorts. Sure, put some DD captain in the position of moving into orbit with a freighter over a League planet and then three CA's demand the surrender of both the warship and the freighter "in responce to the attacks on SLN ships by RMN ships in the Talbot Sector" as a precautionalry measure to insure no incidents occur here. I don't think that would go over well with either the DD's captain, the RMN in general nor anybody back at Manticore.
Don't give them the set up to create a provocation.

The thing is Lacoon I's success is another issue with the story at this point. Suddenly we find out that the gigantic League is economically dependent on Manticore to the extent that pulling their ships out puts the League at an imminent risk of financial collapse, while Manticore can apparently get along fine without that trade.

Eyal wrote:The thing is Lacoon I's success is another issue with the story at this point. Suddenly we find out that the gigantic League is economically dependent on Manticore to the extent that pulling their ships out puts the League at an imminent risk of financial collapse, while Manticore can apparently get along fine without that trade.

We do not actually know the impact of Laocoon on the economies of the core worlds; instead we know that it affected the cash stream that supported the League bureaucracy, which is something completely different. In order to get a more direct source of money the Mandarins needed to get a declaration of war, which would allow for taxes on the members.

Certainly there was trade between members, but the removal of the Manty merchant fleet and closing of wormholes might only affect long haul trade. We do not know how much trade was local versus long haul.