Post League Eridani

@TFLY. Something went horribly wrong inside the chamber! LOL

What!? . . . Didn't enjoy OBS!!!? . . . GET HIM!!!! . . .


I DID ENJOY OBSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! I DIDDD!!!!!!!!!!! HONEST I DIDDD!!!!!!!!!!


WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!

Late Edit: You probably didn't enjoy OBS because you didn't start the series with it, as I was fortunate enough to enjoy. By the time you read OBS you had morphed into what I've come to call "series uppity."


Can't argue with HotQ put in contention for best book in the series. The bit about Abby staring up at the night sky is so intimate, sweet and ahem arousing. It's interesting to note everyone's "stranded on an island" Weber book. Mine, OBS! One of my friend's is At All Costs. Kzt hates that one. I like it too. Goes to show that Weber writes something for everyone. LOL

We mustn't forget that even the RMN was unsure about the measure of its qualitative edge until taking the gloves off. I think Michelle was the first to really test the waters regarding their inferiority. So, if the RMN itself wasn't so sure about the fruits of its own labors, then we can't fault anyone else from failing to notice their total superiority. Besides, there's always danger in numbers, which the League has. Hard to ignore the numbers, even when you're a true blue strategist. AND! When everyone has been afraid of the biggest bully in history for eons, it's hard to completely wrap your head around the fact that the bully's abdominal muscles have gone weak - enough to put your faith in the new guy who everyone thinks can whip him, until he does. Well, it's much easier to put one's faith in him, without betting one's farm on him.

Castenea wrote:

noblehunter wrote:


I think because it wasn't until Apollo that the qualitative difference was decisive. Sure, Ghost Rider and the SD(P) of Operation Buttercup would have taken out a lot of SLN SDs but the Reserve would have gotten to them in the end. Manticore needed the lethality upgrade of Apollo to reduce the effect combat power of the Reserve to zero.

I believe that The RMN would not have been seen as better than the SLN to outside observers untill after HaE. The clear use of better than SLN tech does not come untill the early ghost rider equipment starts to be deployed (operation Buttercup, or the end of the first Haven war). The SLN would probably have been able to steam roll the RMN eventually up untill the general deployment of Apollo. With the SLN having outdated doctrine and a head in the sand attitude toward any new developments, eventually could be after heads roll in Solarian intelligence due to having to explain the black hole so many of their ships disappeared into. Thus can the SLN get enough ships into action to finish off Manticore before Manticore can replace its losses.

Remember the institutional arrogance of the SLN is such that they are likely to lose the first fleet they send to Manticore any time after SVW due to their severe underestimating of the RMN, the question is how great are the losses going to be to the RMN. At the time of SVW, it is likely the second fleet to arrive would carry the day, by operation buttercup it would likely take 3-4, but how long would it take to assemble the third and fourth fleets.

If the SLN had attacked Manticore at the time of SVW, the RMN might have gotten a two or even four to one kill rate but it still would have been a victory for the SLN.

The RMN does not get serious numbers of game changing SD(P)s, the new LACs and CLACs deployed until EOA. Even then the kill rate might have been ten to one and the first SLN fleet would have lost but the second fleet would have won. A caveat is that the RMN could have preemptively raided SOL system successfully and gutted it. The result would have been 1,000+ ships in the first SLN attack on Manticore which would have prevailed.

There was a very brief window of opportunity when the RMN might have been able to stand off the SLN nearly indefinately after AOV and during WoH before the RHN introduces its SD(P)s.

cthia wrote:@TFLY. Something went horribly wrong inside the chamber! LOL

What!? . . . Didn't enjoy OBS!!!? . . . GET HIM!!!! . . .


I DID ENJOY OBSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! I DIDDD!!!!!!!!!!! HONEST I DIDDD!!!!!!!!!!


WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!

Late Edit: You probably didn't enjoy OBS because you didn't start the series with it, as I was fortunate enough to enjoy. By the time you read OBS you had morphed into what I've come to call "series uppity."


Can't argue with HotQ put in contention for best book in the series. The bit about Abby staring up at the night sky is so intimate, sweet and ahem arousing. It's interesting to note everyone's "stranded on an island" Weber book. Mine, OBS! One of my friend's is At All Costs. Kzt hates that one. I like it too. Goes to show that Weber writes something for everyone. LOL

We mustn't forget that even the RMN was unsure about the measure of its qualitative edge until taking the gloves off. I think Michelle was the first to really test the waters regarding their inferiority. So, if the RMN itself wasn't so sure about the fruits of its own labors, then we can't fault anyone else from failing to notice their total superiority. Besides, there's always danger in numbers, which the League has. Hard to ignore the numbers, even when you're a true blue strategist. AND! When everyone has been afraid of the biggest bully in history for eons, it's hard to completely wrap your head around the fact that the bully's abdominal muscles have gone weak - enough to put your faith in the new guy who everyone thinks can whip him, until he does. Well, it's much easier to put one's faith in him, without betting one's farm on him.

Okay I will reread it.

Anyone try reading when your very large, lumbering, lunatic, lap lab insists that she should be ensconcenced in your lap? She either insists that you should be petting her and rubbing her belly, or be still so she can sleep. She also snores.

tlb wrote:When you read the text from RFC, you will see that just executing the leaders is not the full punishment: the current government and military is also disbanded and new structures are set up by the occupying power. Whether the planet can really carry out the guerilla actions you propose against a force that controls the orbitals is questionable. What is not questioned is that the small nation has been conquered, just not by the original threat. What is proposed by the Edict is what happened to Germany and Japan after WWII, and does not resemble the situation in Masada; because the only executions there are the result of internal processes.

So there is a dynamic here: to begin with, a small nation can only threaten planet attack against a force that is already in orbital position to conquer them. If they try to preemptively use a planet attack to prevent being conquered, then that will result in being conquered by a force enforcing the Edict.
So you might say, why not threaten the same against the Edict force? I presume that at that point, the planetary death penalty is imposed.
Also I expect that the definition of responsible leaders is interpreted rather broadly.

Plus unlike with ICBMs today there wouldn't be a quick way for a single head of state to unilaterally trigger a launch. At a minimum he'd have to convince pretty much the entire bridge crew and tactical element of a warship to go along with this strike -- despite knowing they'd condemned their entire crew and likely entire navy and government -- to death. (And then they'd have to keep that information from the rest of the crew until after the launch and it was too late to abort the strike or risk a mutiny to stop the strike)

I'm not saying there are people that wouldn't be deterred by the Edict. Just that you need a much larger number of them committed to violating it - for a much longer time - than you do to trigger a nuclear first strike.



Plus of course strikes designed to be planet killers aren't guaranteed to succeed. Planets with significant naval defenses stand a good chance of stopping such a strike if they see it coming (though admittedly most League worlds currently have weak defenses -- but I don't know whether they have good sensors or if those are equally bad) Even freighters could stop a frac-c ballistic EE strike if system sensors detected the launch and can cue them into the correct blocking positions. So it's far from guaranteed that such a strike will succeed - which further reduced the deterrent value of a retaliatory strike against a government enforcing the Edict.

Without GA or MAlign tech I'd rate the ability of even a squadron of ships to pull off an EE strike against any of the 3 inhabited worlds in the Manticore binary system to be very low. Manticore has got some of the best system sensors in space and even if the attack is from 6+ light-months out (beyond sensor range) they're likely to pick up light-speed signals of the relativistic collisions of the missiles with interstellar material -- and can forward those warnings via FLT to cue block-ships.

kzt wrote:An interesting thought on proliferation. If you get a sample of a piece of tech you can reproduce it. Just erode it one atom at a time.

Though the books have mentioned Manticoran military tech having some (unspecified) anti reverse-engineering features that were supposedly fairly effective at slowing down Haven's attempts to duplicate captured items wholesale.

(Of course there's also a risk that if you blindly replicate a captured piece of military tech that things like self-destruct commands or IFF might be inadvertently replicated as well. Oops.
So you still need to understand it well enough to make sure any you make only do what you want them to do)

TFLYTSNBN wrote:If the SLN had attacked Manticore at the time of SVW, the RMN might have gotten a two or even four to one kill rate but it still would have been a victory for the SLN.

The RMN does not get serious numbers of game changing SD(P)s, the new LACs and CLACs deployed until EOA. Even then the kill rate might have been ten to one and the first SLN fleet would have lost but the second fleet would have won. A caveat is that the RMN could have preemptively raided SOL system successfully and gutted it. The result would have been 1,000+ ships in the first SLN attack on Manticore which would have prevailed.

There was a very brief window of opportunity when the RMN might have been able to stand off the SLN nearly indefinately after AOV and during WoH before the RHN introduces its SD(P)s.

Three things to note. The SLN only has ~2000 SD in active duty I find it unlikely that they would assemble more than 1/4 of their fleet for one operation without very strong incentive (Filareta had ~500 SDs, but this was after three forces had been destroyed). Any RMN planner would be expecting the SLN ECM to be better than Havens, to better than the RMN for any war games planned before Byng's ships were defeated. Inexcusably it seems that missile pods were a surprise to SLN commanders as late as Crandall's defeat.

Thus I find it possible that an SLN punative expedition to Manticore launched at any time during the First Haven War would have less than 250SDs and only 100 to 250 escorts of all types. Upon getting the massive alpha strike that was standard Haven Sector doctrine at that time this fleet is likely to take enough losses in the missile exchange that it is unable to overpower Home fleet once it closes to energy range.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Anyone try reading when your very large, lumbering, lunatic, lap lab insists that she should be ensconcenced in your lap? She either insists that you should be petting her and rubbing her belly, or be still so she can sleep. She also snores.

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Lap Labs can make an excellent blanket and bookstand

-- Stewart

ldwechsler wrote:

GloriousRuse wrote:There is a large difference between a few cruisers being nobly self-sacrificing, and admitting Manticore prime’s 3 billion citizens might be the price next time you go to bat - and since you are going to bat after the fact, you can’t even save whoeve got EEV’d

At that point you might as well surrender to any bad guy that comes along. They threaten, you cave.

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There are politicos in this universe that do exactly that; and that WAS Houseman's recommendation in HOT

-- Stewart

Incidentally, “threats and caving” basically makes up the majority of use of force questions.

“If you do this, we’ll do that”. And then both does sit there wondering how serious the other side is, and if it’s worth paying the price. If the answer comes back as “yes, the other side is serious, and no, it’s not worth the price” then you back down.

For example, the price of invading the DPRK is virtually assured destruction of Seoul, millions of civilian deaths, 100ks of ROK casualties, 10ks of US casualties, and possibly having a war with China if things go wrong. Which is why no one seriously considered it until recently when the potential of nuking LA became a real thing.

So in a sense, yes, every leader you have had in your lifetime has probably spent more time “caving” than they would ever admit. Every African war that we decide isn’t worth it, every Iranian militia we don’t drag into an open war, every state based cyber-attack against the financial sector, every show down in the pacific that leaves the Chinese a little more unofficial territory, every South American nation that imposed unanswered tariffs because the trade war isn’t worth it...

Every day, in every way, leaders cave under perceived or explicit threats. The alternative is pretty much perpetual war.