How to downgrade the fleet without upsetting the public?

kzt wrote:That’s pretty much it.

You’ll notice that there wasn’t a stab in the back movement after WW2, when it was blatantly obvious to everyone that they have been totally defeated. But in this case it seems open to exactly what happened post WW1.

And if you notice the League was TOTALY defeated in the war...there wasent much of a doubt in anyone's mind when they outnumbered the grand fleet in Sol and still scuttled their own ships rather than fight. The GA was repeatedly stabbed in the back by a third party(the MA) and they still managed to handout crushing defeat after crushing defeat in most if not all the battle where they were greatly outnumbered.


You’ll notice that there wasn’t a stab in the back movement after WW2 because the German people were ashame as a nation, plus the fact that both halves of Germany were occupied in one fashion or another for the next 45 years did help with such pesky little issues.

Relax wrote:

kzt wrote:That’s pretty much it.

You’ll notice that there wasn’t a stab in the back movement after WW2, when it was blatantly obvious to everyone that they have been totally defeated. But in this case it seems open to exactly what happened post WW1.

I haven't read all of history(I only have one life), but that which I have read, the only war which ENDS, ends when you completely and UTTERLY defeat someone. If you go the "peace half-way compromise, let them keep their "HONOR" " BS, all that happens is the exact same war a few decades later over the exact same issues. When the next power hungry politician rises to power who needs an issue to grab hold of for either their own wealth or power, grabs the existing festering one.

Problem for the League is that the SLN showed its own people what they were willing to do and how far they were willing to go so none of the member states would be willing to give the SLN a big enough stick to endanger them in the future. When you have say 500 well industrialized and affluent core/shell systems with the ability to maintain 100 SD(P)'s on average in a SDF without breaking a sweat they wont need to give the SLN any serious firepower and they wont risk giving the SLN enough firepower to threaten anyone in the League ever again.

So the next power hungry politician or group thereof will have to find a way to beat the opposition within his own nation when said opposition is armed to the teeth and not to keen to trust the SLN or the federal government.

Sigs wrote:
Problem for the League is that the SLN showed its own people what they were willing to do and how far they were willing to go so none of the member states would be willing to give the SLN a big enough stick to endanger them in the future. When you have say 500 well industrialized and affluent core/shell systems with the ability to maintain 100 SD(P)'s on average in a SDF without breaking a sweat they wont need to give the SLN any serious firepower and they wont risk giving the SLN enough firepower to threaten anyone in the League ever again.
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I suspect that the SLN is going to end up being a cruiser/destroyer force, for suppressing piracy and warlordism. So lots of DDs, many CLs, fewer CAs and a handful of BCs for the occasions when the little guys just aren't enough. Otherwise, rely on the nearest SDF for the heavy stuff, or for more of the little boys than the SLN can bring to bear. I would be really surprised if they end up with even a squadron of SDs.

You mistake what the reader knows for what the general population of the SL knows.

The vast majority of the SL citizens can’t tell you what battles the SL has or what atrocity they committed and more than the average US citizen can tell you the most recent UN defeat or most recent atrocity they were involved in.

There is one gigantic mitigating factor;

Every world will think of itself as its own nation no matter what "federal" government of worlds they may be associated with. So, while they may be federated, gaining interplanetary functional policy is nary impossible. I mean how much interaction is there between the UK and Mongolia? None as there is no trade. Even though most of the USA is descended from UK/Germany do American see themselves as interdependent on Europe? Hell no and have not been for 200+ years. Does Argentina? Or Chile? No. This could be true within a couple generations of immigration, but past this? No.

Lets give the above a bit more relevance. Current Mexican immigrants in USA of which there are millions still proudly wave the Mexican flag. Will they in a couple generations? No. This is no different from the Greeks, Italians, Germans, UK immigrants who settled in USA... though the Swedes still do raise their flag so....

Of course DW has also stated that food stuffs are one of the largest commodities making interplanetary dependency high for their populations. In an age of robots for farming, and effectively free energy which equals free water, fertilizer and nutrients, free greenhouses for robots to run around in, so yea, go figure how this one sorts itself out.

Frankly I saw the SL as a joke to begin with.

Same reason the Roman empire died. Once conquered, the fringes of the realm quickly went their own way as the time lag between Rome and its outlying districts was too extreme. The extent of central governance was about 2 weeks travel time one way for a couple hundred years which quickly degraded to about one weeks travel time one way and the move to Constantinople.

Now with the advent of the Streak drive, the size of empires allowed due to governance timeliness issues in the HV just increased by 40%. Obviously whoever controls the WHJ can become the largest--> Oh our heroes can now become the EMPIRE which now becomes utterly corrupt and descends into anarchy and chaos in 2 centuries time.

Both Manticore and Grayson will rebuild their ability to build and equip warships along with commercial shipping.
Why is a bit different for each but they will at least replace a major part of that capacity to build starships- military and civilian.

Grayson is now "out there" in the larger universe and isn't going to going to let itself be compressed and reduced to it's state before the alliance with Manticore. While they should maintain the current relationship with SEM they will always want to be considered (and delt with) as a strong partner in that relationship. They are no longer a backwater and they will continue to define themselves in meeting the tests they are presented. They also like having become a system that produces and exports things. They find they are good at a lot more than they were and their local ability to innovate and be successful adds strength.

Manticore entered the picture for us in the series as a massivly successful maritime trading nation with a robust economy built on a number of things but primarily that: 1) it was a signifcant exporter of manufactured goods, 2) had a massive, efficient, experienced and compeditive merchant fleet which had built a commanding level of market share in commerce in much of human occupied space- the Junction certainly helped that. and 3) it had a large and experienced professional navy which was fully focused on both the protection of Manticore's and operating (in it's own self interests in protecting said merchant fleet) as a commerce protection force to protect it's shipping and assist it's allies and trading partners do the same.
Given the backstory (including the Manticore Assendent Series) we see where the commerce and navy parts started. To do that they ended up having to create their own capasity to build both warships and the start of their own merchant shipping rather than depend on either vessels built elcewhere or shipping/merchants from other systems. That also meant that they had to create the industry to provide the needed equipment built at Manticore and expand their manufacturing to be able to export goods and compete sucessfully againt other systems in trade.
Manticore is NEVER going to give up the ability to build and maintain it's own military. The military fabrication for them going on with Beowulf is only an interim stage to keep it's ships operational, provide spare parts and weapons till it can get it's own yards and manufacturing back on-line with a trained workforce. The agreements with Haven for what will be comming out of Bolthole is essentialy the same thing. Keep the Navy whole, strong and with full magazines till SEM can regain the capacity. And that is both the military and the civilian capacity though how they get there is another discussion.

Fox2! wrote:
I suspect that the SLN is going to end up being a cruiser/destroyer force, for suppressing piracy and warlordism. So lots of DDs, many CLs, fewer CAs and a handful of BCs for the occasions when the little guys just aren't enough. Otherwise, rely on the nearest SDF for the heavy stuff, or for more of the little boys than the SLN can bring to bear. I would be really surprised if they end up with even a squadron of SDs.

The way I see this moving forward is that the SLN is reformed as a small professional force that would form the core of a League fleet in times of war, this would include SD(P)'s, CLAC's, BC(P)/BC(L)'s and below. They would need a well balanced fleet that can meet most enemies in combat if the need arouse but not big enough to ever again threaten member systems who have their own SDFs without expecting prohibitive losses.

Say the League has 500 Core and Shell systems remaining after he dust settles, the SLN could easily have 500 SD(P)'s Plus CLAC's and lighter combatants because it wont be responsible for the defence of any of those systems and will act as a Quick Reaction Force, if the threat becomes to much for the SLN to handle the league government has to request the member systems to federalize their SDF's and those member systems would be very, very weary of doing that because the SLN's history of attacking it's own member states.


They need a force that can handle moderate sized threats by themselvs but they also need a force that wont be able to become a threat by itself.


IF we assume that even the least industrialized and wealthy core and shell system can field at least 30 SD(P)'s of their own and the more affluent members who compare financially to Beowulf circa 1920 can field a force of 150 SD(P)'s without breaking a sweat If we take an average of 50 SD(P)'s per member that would make an insane force of 25,000 SD(P)'s vs the SLN's 500 SD(P)'s and with the events of the war fresh in everyone's mind and the fact that all of the people in question would have prolong fielding 50 SD(P)'s per planet on average shouldent be a problem.


The GA should maintain a fleet of 1000-1200 SD(P)'s immediately post war and eventually build it up to 2000 or more after they have rebuild the industrial losses and they shouldent be worried about the League, the SLN wont be able to face them off alone and noone would be willing to expose their system to wage a war on the GA.

kzt wrote:You mistake what the reader knows for what the general population of the SL knows.

I figure they would be able to get at least some information from a some of the 2,000,000 POW's that the GA will return. They will know that 11th Fleet fired first and will also know what they managed to destroy with their attack. They might not know why 11th Fleet Commanders fired but they can definitely verify the authenticity of the data the GA provides, hell it would be more than a few since they captured 140 SD's in Manticore and 48 in Spindle.


Plus whatever new governing body comes into life in the League might be very interested in the Details from Hypatia. I doubt that the SLN will get by without some very awkward investigations into it's dealing in the Verge, Protectorates, the war with Manticore and their Actions in Buccaneer, eventually things will come out because most people would be far too scared that they could have been next on the SLN hit list and will investigate their little hearts out.

The vast majority of the SL citizens can’t tell you what battles the SL has or what atrocity they committed and more than the average US citizen can tell you the most recent UN defeat or most recent atrocity they were involved in.

But I bet they would be able to tell you all that information within a few months.


Basicly what they have been fed was that somethign happened in New Tuscany and a small force of RMN BC's destroyed 1 SLN BC and forced abother 16 to surrender but its FAKE NEWS because they actually outnumbered us and they tricked our guys.


We attacked Spindle with 71 SD's and faced off a handful of BC's and CA which destroyed 23 SD's and forced another 48 to surrender. They say they only used cruisers, we say FAKE NEWS they outnumbered us and tricked us again.


Then we attacked the Manticoran Home System, this time we showed up with 427 SD's and ended up facing 450 SD's of the RMN, we lost all 427 SD's destroyed/captured... it was pretty much 1 v 1... FAKE NEWS they outnumbered us and tricked us once again.

Then they showed up to Sol with a fleet 2/3 our size and we didnt even bother to fight them, we surendered and out people lived... FAKE NEWS they outnumbered us and tricked us once again.


At some point being told that the Mighty SLN was outnumbered and tricked in every engagement might encourage more systems to run for the hills and form their own nations. Even if they don't it might discourage the SLN from retaliation against the GA because they obviously have tens of Thousands of SD(P)'s, BC(P)'s and lighter combatants if they can outnumber the SLN in every engagement... plus the GA's top commanders can trick the SLN in every engagement...

So you can write a long paper on how this came to be, or I can campaign on how those traitors stabbed us in the back.

Which is more likely to get mindshare?

kzt wrote:So you can write a long paper on how this came to be, or I can campaign on how those traitors stabbed us in the back.

Which is more likely to get mindshare?

There is not one particular group that is exclusivly responsible for the war... besides we get it, Manticore, Haven and Grayson are the only once that are smart enough to see through the bullshit while the 1,700 League member systems are immune to logic and reason and the League has no media of any sort to be able to get news and even if they had news all however many billions or trillions of them cannot scrape enough brain cells to see the truth.


Some will try to say that they were stabbed in the back, the majority will be ripped from their fantasy world and thrown into the real world when the reality hits that the mighty SLN was crushed, many if not most will see the SEM's media releases as the truth because their actions support their assertions, something that the League and the SLN cannot claim with a straight face.

At the end of the day World War two did not come about because the Germans felt like they were backstabbed during WW1, it came about because of a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with hurt feelings and conspiracies from the Great War.