?

tlb wrote:
One thing that bothers me about the forts constructed as Manticore took control of various wormhole junctions. Clearly they cannot be built from scratch, so they must be built in sections that are the largest that can fit into the largest cargo ships and then snapped together on site. Does that sound right? How long should it take to put together (and take apart when no longer needed). I wondered at the time if it would be simpler and more economical to build forts with a hyper generator and then fly them into place as needed; with the ability to fly home as well.

Exactly. That was the period the Monican’s and MA were planning to exploit at Lynx.

Loren Pechtel wrote:That's how I understand it, also--the battle for space must be resolved before you start on the battle for the planet, and any time the battle is for something civilian you are expected to offer surrender first.

cthia wrote:The battle for space IS resolved, the CRITICAL space that is; the space about the planet. Orbit.

"We presently control the orbitals. LOW. MEDIUM. HIGH. POLAR NORTH. POLAR SOUTH."

The battle for the planet began with the demand to surrender.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Being in orbit doesn't mean the battle for space has been resolved. So long as weapons bear there still is a battle in space. He has specifically said that a hit-and-run raid doesn't give you the right to demand surrender even if you're closer to the planet than it's defenders.

I assert that if there is sufficient defensive force moving to contest the planet, even if it is outside the hyper limit; then the situation is not resolved enough to permit a surrender demand under the rules of war, The attackers are required to meet all challenges before forcing terms on the planet.

Obviously if the attackers do not care about the rules of war, then the planet may be in for a rough time. But if the attackers are defeated, then their commanders are in for an equally rough time.

So very far afield.
If the Alignment puts something like the LD's into close enough to Manticore to engage the defences in orbit (including any forts and warships parked nearby) and issues a surrender demand on the Command Authority (the Queen) and she does not accept, do you really think that the Alignment is not going to crush Landing and the Palace by hitting them with something aready lurning in orbit? Or some truly large fusion device smuggled on-planet?

They, at that point, won't actualy care about EE violations. Manticore as a Star Nation isn't really of any use to them except as perhaps a labor force and a place to loot ideas from. If they are ready to take on the member of the GA in a coordinated attack on the various systems then they are not worried about anybody else. The prize goes back to being strictly the Junction and it's termini. That's tactical and stratigic control of a vast amount of access and transportaion routes.

What rises from the ashes (in so many sences of the phrase) will be started from a core of Darius style "citizens" who will occupy and control the surviving population of Manticore (and the other GA Star Nations centers) and direct the work and industry on the planets. Over time the original population will die off (one way or another) particulary since it is unlikely that Prolong will be made avaliable to anybody who is not of one of the Alignment lines. Just NOT AVAILABLE. Normals will, at best be labor stock and sources of genetics for incorporation into whatever the MA wants to create.
Your a Manticorain manager of a major manufactring industry....sure, you work for us now and you will manufacture X. Not cooperating? Not meeting goals? Nice family you still have, too bad if something happend to it. So, go ahead and work for the next 60 years and about the time you now might have othewise been thinking of retiring you stop being usefull having imparted all your knowlege and skills to the "citizens you have been training your reward will be- if you are lucky, a "heart attack" instead of getting a pulser dart (old Manticorian millitary issue, don't want to waste the more modern stuff) in the head.

This is the Alignment. If they are that strong they just won't care other than you will serve as a warning to other systems.
Perhaps take the Royal Family and Sr. officers alive and then make a holo of them all committing Seppuke after professing great shame and profound appolgy for impeading the advance of humanity through the briliant work and direction of the Alignment (those nanites are such wonderful little toys, aren't they?)

Brigade XO wrote:So very far afield.
If the Alignment puts something like the LD's into close enough to Manticore to engage the defences in orbit (including any forts and warships parked nearby) and issues a surrender demand on the Command Authority (the Queen) and she does not accept, do you really think that the Alignment is not going to crush Landing and the Palace by hitting them with something aready lurning in orbit? Or some truly large fusion device smuggled on-planet?

I do noy disagree with anything you have written; but I do assert that RFC is simply not going to write such a scene.

The Detweiler Plan is for the Renaissance Association to achieve dominance in the galaxy; not for forces from Darius to go on a campaign of conquest. If that plan fails, then overt military action might result; but until failure is evident any force projection from Darius will be covert and intended to soften opposition to the RA.

Now it is true that both the Malign Plan and the spider drive warships are fragile. The plan is fragile because if it ever became known for whom the RA is fronting, then general revulsion and the RA's military inferiority would prevent success. The spider drive warships are fragile because their only defense against energy beam weapons is stealth.

The plan is already on shaky ground because Manticore and Haven are united and the new Solarian Union should not fragment to the point that core worlds will begin looking for another association to join.

I find it amusing that all of you continue to call this a drive-by. Two hours in Orbit, uncontested. And it's still a drive-by. Honor never entered orbit at all, in the Sol System. And likewise, as with Honor, all enemy warships in the system are still quite busy.

The Malign has made its point.

There is one very important aspect I think we're missing. If the MA is smart - they ARE Alphas - and drop the personal grudge, they can come away from this with what they've always wanted.

"Our surrender demands are peace and the right to coexist as we are. Those are our demands."


None of you are considering how it will look to the Galaxy that this entity is good enough to have occupied the mighty Manticoran orbitals, for two or more solid hours! How will it look to the Galaxy when it finds out that an entity who can do that, even bothered to ask for a surrender. And that the only thing they DID ask for is peace. And the right to coexist. As they are. The MA can seize the moral high ground. If Manticore refuses to surrender and MAKE the MALign launch at that point. The RMN will look like a bunch of Filaretas. You have to respect an enemy who can sneak into your home and hold a knife to your throat. Without killing you.

Will Beth swallow her pride?

How would it affect the Galaxy at large?

.

How I imagine the shape of a Fort

Early on I envisioned the forts as massive castle like structures. ROOK fits nicely.

Later, I thought of them as having been designed to withstand a category 5 storm, like BoM, when the Star Kingdom was young. So it may have had a strong structure, like a Geodesic Dome. The characteristics of that shape says fort all the way.

Triangles have always been the strongest shape.

With the possible exception of one quality. If you build two structures the same size, one a rectangle and one a geodesic, the latter will have 30% less surface area. That means less material to build it. But if you need the surface area to attach weapons, that could be a loss.

cthia wrote:I find it amusing that all of you continue to call this a drive-by. Two hours in Orbit, uncontested. And it's still a drive-by. Honor never entered orbit at all, in the Sol System. And likewise, as with Honor, all enemy warships in the system are still quite busy.

The Malign has made its point.

There is one very important aspect I think we're missing. If the MA is smart - they ARE Alphas - and drop the personal grudge, they can come away from this with what they've always wanted.

"Our surrender demands are peace and the right to coexist as we are. Those are our demands.".

Honor did not have to do so, she could command the entire Solar System from her position. The defenders had no force that could oppose her, so her control was uncontested.

If the Malign were so smart, they could have made their entire point, that there is benefit in human modifications that are currently prohibited, by advertising and selling improved babies to rich people without any of the fuss and bother.

As it is they are NOT currently fighting foe a chance to coexist, they are fighting to dominate and force genetic improvements on the rest of humanity. They hate Beowulf, not Manticore; their only problem with Manticore is that it blocks the way toward the success of their plan.

cthia wrote:How I imagine the shape of a Fort

Early on I envisioned the forts as massive castle like structures. ROOK fits nicely.

Later, I thought of them as having been designed to withstand a category 5 storm, like BoM, when the Star Kingdom was young. So it may have had a strong structure, like a Geodesic Dome. The characteristics of that shape says fort all the way.

Triangles have always been the strongest shape.

With the possible exception of one quality. If you build two structures the same size, one a rectangle and one a geodesic, the latter will have 30% less surface area. That means less material to build it. But if you need the surface area to attach weapons, that could be a loss.

Honorverse forts have been described as a "flattened Oblate". Current Manty forts are modular and easily reconstructible with new tech or purpose, with a spinal section that allows forts up to about 20 Mtons in size. Larger forts are possible, but there is not currently a spinal section designed for such.

cthia wrote:I find it amusing that all of you continue to call this a drive-by. Two hours in Orbit, uncontested. And it's still a drive-by. Honor never entered orbit at all, in the Sol System. And likewise, as with Honor, all enemy warships in the system are still quite busy.

The Malign has made its point.

There is one very important aspect I think we're missing. If the MA is smart - they ARE Alphas - and drop the personal grudge, they can come away from this with what they've always wanted.

"Our surrender demands are peace and the right to coexist as we are. Those are our demands."


None of you are considering how it will look to the Galaxy that this entity is good enough to have occupied the mighty Manticoran orbitals, for two or more solid hours! How will it look to the Galaxy when it finds out that an entity who can do that, even bothered to ask for a surrender. And that the only thing they DID ask for is peace. And the right to coexist. As they are. The MA can seize the moral high ground. If Manticore refuses to surrender and MAKE the MALign launch at that point. The RMN will look like a bunch of Filaretas. You have to respect an enemy who can sneak into your home and hold a knife to your throat. Without killing you.

Will Beth swallow her pride?

How would it affect the Galaxy at large?

.

It's still a drive by if they haven't removed all ability for the fleet to respond. Two hours or not, anything they do is an Eridani violation - not that they care about such things anyway. So long as Darius is unknown they don't have to worry about any reciprocity. But as soon as it is found, Darius is going to be destroyed.

And in fact Honor DID enter Earth orbit and she occupied those orbits for WEEKS while the new constitution was being written. In fact Grand Fleet was still in Earth orbit while Honor returned to Manticore to resign.

kzt wrote:

tlb wrote:
One thing that bothers me about the forts constructed as Manticore took control of various wormhole junctions. Clearly they cannot be built from scratch, so they must be built in sections that are the largest that can fit into the largest cargo ships and then snapped together on site. Does that sound right? How long should it take to put together (and take apart when no longer needed). I wondered at the time if it would be simpler and more economical to build forts with a hyper generator and then fly them into place as needed; with the ability to fly home as well.

Exactly. That was the period the Monican’s and MA were planning to exploit at Lynx.

The Lynx forts, being at a Manticore Wormhole Junction terminus, is probably very different from the seized termini during Lancoön II. The former forts are meant to be permanent, or at least long-lived. Since the system where the terminus opens is bereft or most building material and has no industry to speak of, the fort must have been built in Manticore and shipped.

Either in pieces, carried by humongous freighters, or it can actually trasverse the wormhole. Unlike hyperspace, it doesn't need a hyper generator. All it needs is a pair of Warshawski sails, which its impellers could be able to generate. Do sails require alpha nodes, or can beta generate them too?

The Lancoön forts, on the other hand, must have been much smaller and must have been carried by freighters. The warp bridges were too far away from each other for a fort to reach in reasonable time, given its horribly slow acceleration, even if one has hyper generators.