How will the manties fare when their tech advantage is gone?

The bomb attacks on Beowulf were against civilian targets through commercial shipping delivery systems with (other than scanners etc) are very much open knowlege for anybody who is going to deal with sending things to a customer in the Beowulf System. Like attacking via a UPS of FedEx (or DHL) hub/holding area around any city in the US, Europe etc. You can look them up.

The Alignment is haveing a terrible time trying to get military/advanced tech information out of Beowulf, Manticore, Haven and apparenlty the IAE and Erwhon. In the meetings shown to us with the Detweilers, they HAVE NOT gotten access to blueprints, designs, OR RECOVERED ANY USABLE/WORTHWHILE BITS AND PEICES OF ANY OF THAT MANTY OR THOSE OTHER STAR NATIONS military/advanced tec. That would apparently include the Maya Sector as well. Just don't have it.
What they are working from- per the in-story discussions- is primarily knowing what Manticore has done but exactly how or what the equipment is and how it works is so far not known.
They appeared to failed to get informants or spies into any of the GA, Beowulf, IAE, Erowhon military industrial partners such that they can get hands on that info. They have gotten things like production schedules, shifts in what they are making (but now how they are made) and volume changes but no actionable tech data.
Not only were they not sucessfull before UH with that tech penetration, since then they have been bleeding assets from all of those plus the SLN/SL. Treecats plus the INTENDED consequences of the nanites anti-interegation treatments is eliminating agents at an astounding rate, particularly with Alignment agents getting picked up and dying with no time or ability to say they might be in trouble.
The elimination of these networks is in both military and government areas. We, the readers, know that there are people out in places like the law firm that handles Hauptman work and probably places like the clinic that dealt with Honor's pregnancy but it is quiet possible that things at that level might be included soon. Why? Because as the awarness of espionage- particularly corporate espionage- could be comming from the Alignment, a lot of companies that have either high profiles or sensitive work will be looking to get some kind of cover.
There was also the statement with the Detweilers that Oyster Bay took out a lot of their agents in the areas they were most interested, that being anything to do with the logistics, manufactruing and tec on the Manticore space stations. At the same point, they were still no getting people into where they needed to extract anything on all that Manty high tec military developemnt.
So, the Alignment maintains their edge in the things they developed ly Streak (for now) and Sypider plus their catspaws like SDF of the Mannheim SDF where a signicant part of the officer corps and the Star Nations leadership are Alpha lines but the GA and company are holding security on the tech side.
Will this change? Sure. How fast: We don't know. Partialy it depends on how motivated the Aligment is to modify their plans now that large chunks of them have gone sideways. On the other hand, other than that spasm of retaliation of hitting Beowulf (which was damaging to the GA in terms of primarily loss of senior ledeadership people) I expect the Alignment to use that whole "hide in the shadows and not be seen" stratagy that has supported them for centuries. Of course the GA, particular Manticor, Beowulf and the IAE, are cranking up thier looking and have put actual top agents on it. Dangerous ones.

Brigade XO wrote:The Alignment is haveing a terrible time trying to get military/advanced tech information out of Beowulf, Manticore, Haven and apparenlty the IAE and Erwhon. In the meetings shown to us with the Detweilers, they HAVE NOT gotten access to blueprints, designs, OR RECOVERED ANY USABLE/WORTHWHILE BITS AND PEICES OF ANY OF THAT MANTY OR THOSE OTHER STAR NATIONS military/advanced tec. That would apparently include the Maya Sector as well. Just don't have it.

The Maya Autonomous Regional Sector Navy and the Erewhon Space Navy are nowhere as advanced as the Manticoran or Grayson, or even the Havenite one. I assume this is because the Erewhonese shared what they knew with the Havenites, who continued to improve on it in Bolthole. We know from the Battle of Torch that Roszak's ships were more capable than the what the MAlign had supplied the StateSec-in-exile, but nowhere as effective as the premier navies would.

BTW, I've ben meaning to asks you: what do you expand IAE to? There's no "IAE" in the wiki. In my mind, I expand it to "Imperial Andermani Empire", but "Imperial Empire" is kind of redundant, isn't it?

Unless somehow "Imperial" is the organisation of the state and "Empire" is the form of government. But then what is an "Imperial" organisation? As an organisation, I could see a "Federative Empire", where the Empire is organised into multiple states with certain levels of autonomy and a local government for each under a central, imperial government (like the SEM seems to be).

Or is your "E" something different?

Will this change? Sure. How fast: We don't know. Partialy it depends on how motivated the Aligment is to modify their plans now that large chunks of them have gone sideways. On the other hand, other than that spasm of retaliation of hitting Beowulf (which was damaging to the GA in terms of primarily loss of senior ledeadership people) I expect the Alignment to use that whole "hide in the shadows and not be seen" stratagy that has supported them for centuries. Of course the GA, particular Manticor, Beowulf and the IAE, are cranking up thier looking and have put actual top agents on it. Dangerous ones.

Given how inflexible they've shown themselves to be and given that RFC has already said they exist in an echo chamber, no, it's not likely that they will modify their plans.

kzt wrote:A this point, the RH/SEM stuff is really all personal relationships. They are one election or bomb from losing that.

Remember how the UK rewarded Churchill for leading them to victory over Germany? less than two months later, while WW2 was still ongoing, the voters replaced him with Attlee.

hmmmm - lots of good reasons for that.

British had long memories of life in the depression before the war. Churchill & Tories were associated with crushing of the general strike, means tested benefits etc. Tories [not Churchill obs] were associated with the appeasement policy that many felt allowed the war to start.

They had seen the competence of the Labour led ministries during the war.

My parents generation also had much more of knowledge of having to hang together at home - whilst our cities were being smashed from the air, people got used to living in shelters, things being shared so that everyone at least had something.

Finally, Churchill made an completely stupid speech:
“No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil.”

Everyone knew that was crap, many of the soldiers had seen the handiwork of the Nazi's in the camps, and it was an absolute gift to Labour. It just convinced the nation that while he was the man for 1939, 1940, 1941 - he was not the man to take the nation on after the war.

History portrays Churchill as a very divisive figure. The ideal personality to lead Britain in its darkest hours, but deeply flawed in many ways, as much from the ultimate "Born to rule" attitude as anything else.
Some historians blame the current middle east on him. As a young aristocrat he cut the Gordian Knot, by taking a straight edge and dividing up the countries, with minimal regard to ethnic or religious allegiances.
Speaking as a citizen of one of England's (not really Britain's) ex colonies, he snobbishly regarded "colonials" as being expendable, and not in any way equal. Gallipoli was the result.
If any on here get to visit the UK, go for a day tour of Blenheim Palace, where he was born and raised. You'll need the day.

Daryl wrote:History portrays Churchill as a very divisive figure. The ideal personality to lead Britain in its darkest hours, but deeply flawed in many ways, as much from the ultimate "Born to rule" attitude as anything else.
Some historians blame the current middle east on him. As a young aristocrat he cut the Gordian Knot, by taking a straight edge and dividing up the countries, with minimal regard to ethnic or religious allegiances.
Speaking as a citizen of one of England's (not really Britain's) ex colonies, he snobbishly regarded "colonials" as being expendable, and not in any way equal. Gallipoli was the result.
If any on here get to visit the UK, go for a day tour of Blenheim Palace, where he was born and raised. You'll need the day.

True.

TBF on the Gallipoli issue, I think that the basic plan could have worked. Sadly the troops were let down by really rubbish leadership, first from the Navy and then the Army.

Also again TBF he did resign and go out to the trenches [as a Lt Colonel] for six months[?]. How effective he was I don't know, but at least he took some responsibility for the disaster.

Can you imagine Boris Johnson doing anything similar?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:You mean like if there's a rip in the fabric of the GA; more specifically, if the Leopard's spots return?

Then they're toast if the Havenites immediately go for the jugular. Instead of pussyfooting around gobbling up peripheral systems. If they linger, superior Manty R&D born from a superior education system will prevail.

It did not sound as though the suggestion was that Haven would attack as the result of tech transfers; rather that Malign would steal all of the GA tech advantages.

Why would the GA break up before the Malign was defeated? In WW2 the Allies stayed together until all the Axis Powers were defeated. Is it because you still think of them as Peeps?

I am simply pointing out that the author's notion becomes viable simply by the return of the leopard's spots. Regardless of any prior "prejudice" against said leopard; or why, or how, internal affairs of the leopard could conspire to cause said outbreak of spots. Also regardless of the timeline; before, or after, the defeat of the MA.

Heck, nobody saw the era—or the effects—the new government of High Ridge (or the Mandarins for that matter) would usurp either.

They be FUBARed!

TFLYTSNBN wrote:They be FUBARed!

When you say "they' are you answering the question posed by the thread, so you mean the Manties are screwed?

isaac_newton wrote:
True.

TBF on the Gallipoli issue, I think that the basic plan could have worked. Sadly the troops were let down by really rubbish leadership, first from the Navy and then the Army.

Though even with rubbish leadership if Churchill's original original plan had been followed (before the Army being unwilling to provide troops led to the Naval only attempt) the British probably would have fairly easily won Gallipoli.


But denied landing troops they just didn't have the right equipment to take out the forts with naval power alone, nor ships capable of sweeping the mines in the fast flow of the Bosphorus while under fire from the forts. That left finding troops to take the forts, or running the gauntlet under fire - and after losing a couple pre-dreadnaughts and serious damage to an early BC the navy wasn't willing to risk the rest of the pre-dreads (and the loss of life each sunk would entail) to try to run the gauntlet.
That failed attempt meant that by the time the Army was willing to offer troops to attempt to savage the failure the Turks were alerted and had moved significant defensive forces into the peninsula.

So an amphibious assault that could have been a cakewalk 4-5 weeks earlier, before the element of surprise was squandered, turned into the brutal slugging match of the historic Gallipoli campaign. (And yes, bad leadership definitely contributed significantly to failing to win that campaign. Especially failure to push forward off the landing beaches in a timely manner)

tlb wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:They be FUBARed!

When you say "they' are you answering the question posed by the thread, so you mean the Manties are screwed?

Correct.

The RMN needs to maintain a tech advantage until everyone in the SL is over 8th Fleet's visit to Sol system. Keep in mind that a few SL systems have economies bigger than Manticore all by themselves.