So....imagine you are Admiral Parnell's staff officer

d-eye wrote:Drop the fleet in at the limit closest to the station.

If the message got out, dump a bunch of mines, set up next to the wormhole and wait for Home fleet to arrive and Boom (There's always a Boom).

Doesn't matter whether it did or not, once you've taken the terminus, fortify it to hold it. If you don't, the Home Fleet will come through sooner or later.

Whether that happens or not, at a prearranged time both groups conduct a mass transit through the wormhole.

Big Boom.

We've been over this. Even a mass transit at the limit of the wormhole isn't enough to overcome the forts.

The only way to take the Manticoran side of the wormhole is from the Manticore side.

d-eye wrote:Drop the fleet in at the limit closest to the station.

If the message got out, dump a bunch of mines, set up next to the wormhole and wait for Home fleet to arrive and Boom (There's always a Boom).

That's what Susanna always said.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Medusa the planet has nil or negative value. The Stilts do not participate in commerce and any activities there would just consume funds. The planet does have warehousing services, but I've never understood why they're in orbit of the planet, instead of close to the terminus. Why do merchants stop at the planet at all, if there's no commerce there? Most ships calling to the system will either transit the wormhole or have just transited from it. All others passing through can come to the wormhole much more easily than to the planet.

Since Basilisk was technically a Manticorian planet, anything produced or shipped to or from Basilisk didn't require customs inspections to go to or from another Manticorian planet. Building a transshipping warehouse in Basilisk orbit was a convenient way to get around customs by "misplacing" items in the warehouse, especially containers which were "mismarked" at their origin and that are containing contraband....

No one can stop a company with legitimate business opportunities on an underdeveloped world, that decided to waste funds and overbuild it's capacity.... And mistakes do happen....

Theemile wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Medusa the planet has nil or negative value. The Stilts do not participate in commerce and any activities there would just consume funds. The planet does have warehousing services, but I've never understood why they're in orbit of the planet, instead of close to the terminus. Why do merchants stop at the planet at all, if there's no commerce there? Most ships calling to the system will either transit the wormhole or have just transited from it. All others passing through can come to the wormhole much more easily than to the planet.

Since Basilisk was technically a Manticorian planet, anything produced or shipped to or from Basilisk didn't require customs inspections to go to or from another Manticorian planet. Building a transshipping warehouse in Basilisk orbit was a convenient way to get around customs by "misplacing" items in the warehouse, especially containers which were "mismarked" at their origin and that are containing contraband....

No one can stop a company with legitimate business opportunities on an underdeveloped world, that decided to waste funds and overbuild it's capacity.... And mistakes do happen....

There's one entity that can: the Manticoran government itself. It's an inhabited planet that is just under Manticore's protection. As I said, there's hardly any legitimate business with the Stilts. Any company trying to set up a warehouse in orbit is suspect.

If the issue was to do customs inspection into the SKM, they could do that at the wormhole, on either side. There must be a lot more warehouse and services industry on the Junction side than the whole of the Medusa planetary orbit.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
There's one entity that can: the Manticoran government itself. It's an inhabited planet that is just under Manticore's protection. As I said, there's hardly any legitimate business with the Stilts. Any company trying to set up a warehouse in orbit is suspect.

If the issue was to do customs inspection into the SKM, they could do that at the wormhole, on either side. There must be a lot more warehouse and services industry on the Junction side than the whole of the Medusa planetary orbit.

The LAW was anthing that moved between PLANETS or HABITATs didn't require customs inspections. So you just ship whatever you want to move to somewhere where the Customs enforcement was Lax - hence Basilisk. Stuff could come in, or go out of the Warehouses without Customs checking it. If you did it at the Wormhole warehouses - People were looking there because there, people were supposed to look at everything.

Unfortunately, as you remember, a good number of the Lords had.... conflicting interests, shall we say. Old families had many investments and many people wanted to be their friends to get things done. And so - head were turned and eyes were blinded to said problems.

It was never said, but Young's appointment in Basilisk space might have had something to do with more than just his lackluster record. Knowing the many pockets his father's fingers had traveled, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Young had been asked to be lax in certain duties or be lenient on certain "friend's" freight lines.

I of course am reading between the lines here, but seeing Young's character, His father's ownership (and use) of the North Hollow files, the traitoress greed of the Lords of the Conservative and the Progressive Parties, and their bahavior during their mid-war control of the Government, it makes sense. The Basilisk Warehousing complexes were rebuilt with Government funds, to a greater Scale - along with a Naval Fleet base and Planetary forts. The work was done by Conservative family owned Construction corporations at a markup. Having Young protecting "Family" investments follows a trail of deeds that preceeds and follows the incident at Basilisk. Only Pavel's laziness and animosity against Honor (And members of the Naval senior leadership which saw through his shenanigans and worked against him) caused the whole operation to fall apart.

Theemile wrote:The LAW was anthing that moved between PLANETS or HABITATs didn't require customs inspections. So you just ship whatever you want to move to somewhere where the Customs enforcement was Lax - hence Basilisk. Stuff could come in, or go out of the Warehouses without Customs checking it. If you did it at the Wormhole warehouses - People were looking there because there, people were supposed to look at everything.

Ah, I see what you're saying. You make entry into the SKM by way of the easiest port of entry, which at the time just happened to be outside the Manticore Binary System. Now, that might actually be in any one of the Talbott Quadrant systems. where a certain level of corruption still exists, like say the Split system.

The only problem is of course the chicken and the egg. When Basilisk was annexed, there were no orbital warehouses and customs inspections for there to be a lax security on. The first few were so low in volume that you couldn't expect there to be much of an opportunity to "lose" cargo. It was clearly cheaper for any legitimate business to ship straight to the wormhole.

Until, that is, the cycle gets broken by the Government. As you said:

I of course am reading between the lines here, but seeing Young's character, His father's ownership (and use) of the North Hollow files, the traitoress greed of the Lords of the Conservative and the Progressive Parties, and their bahavior during their mid-war control of the Government, it makes sense. The Basilisk Warehousing complexes were rebuilt with Government funds, to a greater Scale - along with a Naval Fleet base and Planetary forts. The work was done by Conservative family owned Construction corporations at a markup. Having Young protecting "Family" investments follows a trail of deeds that preceeds and follows the incident at Basilisk. Only Pavel's laziness and animosity against Honor (And members of the Naval senior leadership which saw through his shenanigans and worked against him) caused the whole operation to fall apart.

The less reputable members of the House of Lords may have seen an opportunity. Invest government funds into orbital warehouses and insufficient customs inspections to take opportunity of the law that says that shipments between SKM planets is free of inspections. And as a cherry on top, they probably sold this to the proponents of a stronger presence in Basilisk as regional investmentt. They probably convinced legal shipment to go there, despite the 30 hours minimum delay (hyper limit to Medusa orbit back out to WH), by offering tax incentives.

That kind of stuff does exist in today's world. In Brazil, industries setting up in and around the city of Manaus (in the middle of the Amazon) pay less taxes and no import or export duties. It was created in the 1950s, but expanded in the late 60s and 70s by the military governments as a strategic defence solution by way of regional development.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:The Peeps had that force sitting in hyper twiddling it's thumbs. If that fleet would have gone in with guns blazing, Honor would have been lost. Perhaps even White Haven as well when he arrived with the cavalry.

That was D'Orville, not White Haven, who came to the rescue in Basilisk. White Haven comes to her rescue in HotQ.

The Peeps were always the victim of overthinking. Most likely the ever present obese gorilla loomed large and in charge and kept everyone honest. None wanted to lose too many resources fighting a war and leaving itself vulnerable to the ever present greedy gorilla

I don't think that's something you take into consideration. You plan for not provoking the SLN, not winning against it. Doesn't matter how much of the PRN is left: even if it were intact, it would not outfight the SLN even in 1915.

Doh! Thanks for the correction.

But you do take it into consideration. That's exactly why Eloise was able to dangle the carrot of an alliance under Beth's nose. So that her navy could "save the rest of those god-awful missiles" for a misbehaving gorilla, or for anyone else out there for that matter.

It's at least a subconscious consideration. You still must be able to protect your Home System after a war, or someone may smell death from a dying or injured carcass like a vulture flying overhead.

Much like a gorilla smelling the blood pouring out of your deep wounds from Oyster Bay.

Fox2! wrote:

d-eye wrote:Drop the fleet in at the limit closest to the station.

If the message got out, dump a bunch of mines, set up next to the wormhole and wait for Home fleet to arrive and Boom (There's always a Boom).

That's what Susanna always said.

I wondered if anyone would pick that up

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

d-eye wrote:Drop the fleet in at the limit closest to the station.

If the message got out, dump a bunch of mines, set up next to the wormhole and wait for Home fleet to arrive and Boom (There's always a Boom).

Doesn't matter whether it did or not, once you've taken the terminus, fortify it to hold it. If you don't, the Home Fleet will come through sooner or later.

Whether that happens or not, at a prearranged time both groups conduct a mass transit through the wormhole.

Big Boom.

We've been over this. Even a mass transit at the limit of the wormhole isn't enough to overcome the forts.

The only way to take the Manticoran side of the wormhole is from the Manticore side.

in 1900 while at peace would have been the best time to try it.

My impression on the contriving of the uprising on Medusa was to provide an excuse for the RHN fleet to come in (having been alerted by the Q ship etc) and occupy the orbitals.
Without going back and rereading, it wasn't clear that Haven was immediatly going to occupy the terminus. More like they were going to take over the system as a Protectorate and then force a negotiated sharing of the terminus.

This would have to be viewed from the perspective of grabbing the system as OFS has been doing for centuries and then getting some assistance from the SL as a party helping with the arbitration of operation of the terminus (for a fee).
Haven was very carefully trying NOT to start a war with Manticore at that point. On the other hand, having a "legitimate" right to the terminus, it's use and a portion of it's fees, would enhance Haven's cash flow and improve shipping times. That terminus is presented as having practical benfits in shortening travel time between the SL and the Silesia area (probably relative distance closer to parts of Silesia than the Gegor and parts of RH than Trevor's Star. So there is money and economic advantage. It also eliminates the next closes point Manticore could use against Haven when war eventualy comes because Haven could ligitimatly have forces very close by to interdicdt the terminus once Haven decides to take on Manticore.

For Haven to have immediatly posted a military force on the Basilisk teminus would have strained the credibility of even the SL as to the "humanitarian" responce to the Medusa uprising and quite possibly kicked off the Haven-Manticore war right away. What would a RHN squadron/etc have done when RMN warships started comming through to Basilisk terminus once news had been transmitted to Manticore? Shooting them out-of-hand as they came through? Denied them moving into the Basilisk System- and then enforced that how- again, opening fire?
Haven didn't- that we know of- have ANY warships posted in other places to react to Manticore taking an agressive stand against Haven taking effective possession of Medusa. They apparently were not ready to take on Manicore with open war, they wanted to chew away at the edges and improve the territorial holds.