Would Dispersing Shipyards Blunt or Stop a Second Oyster Bay

kzt wrote:Be ause that implies it was told to at least dozens of RMN officers, wjo also have need to know.

The fact that something is interesting and cool is not a sifficent reason to tell everyone who might want to know. Why do they need to know? If you cant answer that they don't need to know.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:But that's exactly the point: many of them had a need to know. Elizabeth and Honor and probably all of the Lords of the Admiralty had a need: to be convinced of Haven's trustworthiness. A lot of other people had other needs: for example, to figure out the logistics of getting personnel and material shipped there, and hardware shipped back. And the crews of the military ships going there.

tlb wrote:If standing with Manticore against Filereta's fleet isn't proof of trustworthiness, then what is?

I will accept that Honor is probably not a risk, but you are going too far. It would be better if she and the Queen and all of the Lords of the Admiralty did not know and the logistics train has already been set up; so there is no need for more. Even most of the crews that make the trip should not know and the number of such crews should be limited.

KZT's basic point is correct, as knowledge of a secret expands the probability of the secret being exposed expands faster.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Sigs wrote:They are defenceless against anyone and everyone that matters(GA and MA). When you are the top dog for centuries and everyone knows you are the top dog it is kind of hard on your citizens when you end up being defenceless. Who are they equal to? The verge systems? Some Neutrals? When there are ~10 navies in human space that can be legitimately called a navy and you are #10 on the list while for the previous 700 years you were #1 and stronger then the other 9 navies combined I would assume you would be more then defenceless.

You're exaggerating on both ends here. The number of navies that can be legitimately called navies depends on what your criteria are. If it's anyone with an organised, professional military that has warships, there are far more than 100. If it's a professional military with BCs and up, then there are probably 60. If you only count as navies those that have at least one SD, then I guess there are some 20-25, most of which are SDFs of League systems.

tlb wrote:

Sigs wrote:If they were to find the original colony ship destination and they know who the original colonists were it would narrow their search area dramatically. If I told you that it was somewhere in human space it could be tens or hundreds of millions of stars, if I gave you the original coordinates where they were going and use that as your guide you can find it without too much problem, that is unless all records of the colony ship were destroyed/lost.

You only know that this has something to do with a colony ship because you read the short story, To everyone in Honorverse that colony is lost and gone and no one has any reason to connect Bolthole to it. The coordinates were known and there were attempts to find the colonists and they failed.

Haven only found the place because of the wormhole and the explorers were ordered to check everything in the vicinity. That included going off some distance to check a dust cloud.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
You're exaggerating on both ends here. The number of navies that can be legitimately called navies depends on what your criteria are. If it's anyone with an organised, professional military that has warships, there are far more than 100. If it's a professional military with BCs and up, then there are probably 60. If you only count as navies those that have at least one SD, then I guess there are some 20-25, most of which are SDFs of League systems.[/quotes] Legitimate navies are those with DN and above and those that will get DN/SD/BC(P)/BC(L)/SD(P) within a few years. Most of the navies in the honorverse are at best system defence forces at worst a couple of LAC's acting as a coast guard.

Ranking them:

1. Royal Manticoran Navy
2. Republic of Haven Navy
3. Imperial Andermani Navy
4. Grayson System Navy
5. Erewhon Navy
6. Solarian League Navy
7. Mayan Autonomous Regional Sector Navy
8. Beowulf System Defence Force
9. Renaissance Factor Navy
10. a handful of SL SDFs that had SDs
11. Idaho, Marsh, Zanzibar, Alizon system navies, who bought SDs from Manticore during the High Ridge administration
12. Mesan Space Navy (before it surrendered), other BC-wielding navies
13. Royal Torch Navy
14. smaller navies, like the Rembrandt Trade Union pre-annexation

MARSN has SD(P)'s on order and with the collapse of the office of Frontier Security and Frontier Fleet they might get quite a boost of officers and enlisted who want to jump ship. Because we are talking about officers with prolong who have served 30,40 or 50 years they have contacts all through the FF which means at least I would assume that they would have a list of potential reliable officers and enlisted when they declear independence. With Missile Pods from the Erewhon Navy, SD(P)'s and LAC's they will make a formidable force which will prove a challenge to anything short of 100% of the SLN. Once the GA installes fixed defences in the Mayan Region its game over because the SLN wont be able to hit them even if the entire SLN showed up on time and ready to fight.

BSDF on the other hand already has SD's and within a year at most will have SD(P)'s to replace their SD's. With more automation and some assistance in terms of manpower from GSN, RMN and the RHN they may even be able to double their capital ships. Having a fleet of 80 SD(P)'s backed up by a whole bunch of LAC's would mean that they can easily face of 20 times their number in SD's without too much of a problem.

The SLN is left with something like 1,500 SD's and whatever is left of the reserve which is definitely not enough face off 80 SD(P)'s with a LAC screen and system defence missile pods.

We don't know enough about the RFN or the MAN to determine where they rank compared to the SLN and the SLN definitely doesn't know anything about wither of those organizations.

I ranked the RMN ahea of the RHN because of the technology, even though the RHN has more ships. I ranked the Erewhon Navy ahead of the SLN because they already had SD(P)s though that's arguable, while the MARSN was only getting them in 1923/1924 and neither the RFN nor the BSDF had any as of 1923. Of course that will change soon.

Within a couple of years. When by 1925-1930 9 of the Navies on the list have enough SD(P)'s and fixed defences to face off the SLN and win without too much problem while at the same time being able to go into virtually any system in the League without too much worry I think the SLN gets a low rank.

The position of the Mesan Alignment Navy is unknown. They have no SDs or SD(P)s as of 1923 and won't until some 5 years from now. Of course, no one outside of the MAlign itself knows that.

Arent the Leonard Detweiler class SD(P)'s?

Despite not having any SD(P)s, the SLN could most definitely hold its own against the MARSN. They still have 1500 SDs which can tow missile pods, so unless you have access to Manticoran or Havenite missiles, ECM, ECCM and volume of SD(P)s, you're not going to defeat the SLN.

If the MARSN send out a fleet of 20 SD(P)'s with say 10 CLAC's 5 years down the road to any system in the League the SLN has nothing to stop them with unless they happen on 40+% of the SLN SD strength being gathered in that system. On the flip side with the upgrades to system defences that the GA is probably going to give them, the MARSN will definitely be a tough nut to crack even for the entire SLN fleet.

So they're neither defenceless nor at the bottom of the list. But they have been brought down a peg, from #1 to #5 or #6 and Beowulf-Hypatia will overtake them soon.

1. RMN
2. RHN
3. GSN
4. IAN
5. Erewhon Navy( I am going to assume that since they are building SD(P)'s for MARSN they first build some for themselves.)
6. BSDF(Within a couple of years)
7. RF(We don't know what they have)
8. MAN(They will have SD(P)'s shortly)
9. MARSN(Soon to have SD(P)'s and Mycroft)
10. SLN

The RF may be below the SLN or may be above the SLN. Once the BSDF has their SD(P)'s and LAC's they would be able to face the remaining SLN SD's without too much of a problem.

Also, one interesting thing you mentioned: a League reduced to 1/4th its current size. That would be about 500 member systems. That's of comparable size to the GA: Haven has some 200-250, the SEM has some 60-80, the AE has 30-50. If you add the former PRH worlds that are still in the Haven volume of influence, the former Manticoran Alliance members (Grayson, Casca, Zanzibar, Alizon, Marsh, Idaho, Erewhon), you get a number very close to 500.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I'll just reiterate my point once again: it's not about why someone did what they did, whether it was a success or not, but how they went about it. Though I have to concede that increasing complexity also increases the chances of something going wrong.

Maybe not to the League, but to smaller, independent regional blocs. Fragmenting the League into smaller blocs was part of Honor's Plan (pulverising them into independent systems wasn't).

And yes, they will build navies. The BSDF had known for a decade about SD(P)s and MDMs. The only reason they didn't have them was to keep the SLN from knowing about them. Now they're producing MDMs and are not part of the Solarian League anymore. They'll be licensing the Invictus or the Medusa design and building them. The BSDF will have a squadron of home-built SD(P)s by late 1925.

Sigs wrote:My point is that if somehow someone leaked that Bolthole is actually the colony from the colony ship everyone KNOWS disappeared and someone used the honorverse equivalent of Google to figure out where it was going to begin with it narrows things down. If it is accessible to everyone who is interested to know about the expedition then if someone spills the beans that Bolthole is actually expedition x, that's all they need since whoever starts looking will look at the target system first and fan out from there, its not that complicated once you have a starting point and a much more narrow area than 100,000 or more systems.