?

I still think sauntering into the Darius System all half-cocked is going to be a big mistake for the GA. All of the MA's tech may be based on their stealth and drive system. What might that mean for remote controlled system mines? Stealthed Forts? I think the GA is going to get a little of their own. "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into. We've hypered into a hornet's nest." Not to mention that the entire Darius system is Whale and Shark infested waters.

I was a wee bit disappointed when Honor visited Sol and had such an easy time invading the Cradle of Civilization. Sol had enough time over the centuries to seed the system so densely you can walk from one end to the next on mines. Forts should have been getting in each other's way.

At any rate, I don't foresee Darius being the same walk in the park. Heck, the system has five space stations.

It would be poetic justice if Honor levelled all five stations. But my point is that the MA has benefit of their own unprecedented technology, and perhaps even the Galaxy's too.

Sol is the administrative and legislative (in a mockery sense of legislative) hub of the SL and the primary fleet base area for the SLN. There was much more than the equevelent of the SEM Home Fleet in system all the tims plus there was the Reserve Fleet location.

Even with the fighting that had already been going on, SLN couldn't truly concive of anybody attacking the Sol system and nobody had as much in the way of active SD and other capital ships as they did.

Who was going to attack the SLN at Sol? Ok, retorical question. But there was apparently no need for forts at Sol with the number of SLN orbital locations and number of active warships squadrons in system all the time.

Darius......going in half cocked? (in this sence that would be round chamberd and safety on). At the moment (just post UH) if the GA were able to show up at Darius tomorrow they would be going in with missles armed in the tubes. Make your best guess at what you would face and bring twice what you think you need...and come in hot. PRESUME that you are going to be facing an unknown number of those invisable ships and do something truly odd. Flooding the system with Ghost Ryder RDs followd by the equivalent of firing buckshot through at least 50% of the system to see if anything stops a pellet. Yah, totaly unrealistic.

What's your desired result if you show up at Darius? Do you want to talk? Do you really feel confident is is more than possible that you would come to talk and that would continue right up to the point where they put enough undetectable warships right on top of your fleets and just destroy all your ships out of hand.......yeah, quite likely with this bunch.

So, very ruthless--after haveing some idea of the geography of the system --you bring gobs of ships out of hyper and pour as much firepower into the system at as many targets as possible and know you are not going to get everything they have, mostly because some of their ships will already be undetectable and others will turn on those odd drives and vanish (and change vectors/speeds).
How very uncivilized. Or mostly desperate since we- the readers- already know exactly how far the Alignment is willing to go (kill them all by the millions and don't bother sorting them out) and the goal is total domination and enslavement.
Sigh....war porn.

cthia wrote:I still think sauntering into the Darius System all half-cocked is going to be a big mistake for the GA.

Why do you think that's what they'd do?

I was a wee bit disappointed when Honor visited Sol and had such an easy time invading the Cradle of Civilization. Sol had enough time over the centuries to seed the system so densely you can walk from one end to the next on mines. Forts should have been getting in each other's way.

They did have the time. But when they had 450 SDs parked there, they thought that wasn't needed. By number of hulls, that was the best defended system anywhere. Forts that might have existed were deactivated, mines weren't replaced when they expired, et. Those SDs became obsolete overnight, far too short a time for the SLN to change strategy and prepare another defence.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I still think sauntering into the Darius System all half-cocked is going to be a big mistake for the GA.

Why do you think that's what they'd do?

I think it'll be unavoidable. Somebody has to be the scout, the point man. The CO tasked with that maiden voyage is going to be ripped a new heinie. It'll be worse than the strip of hide the Havenites tore off Honor's Heine.

cthia wrote:I was a wee bit disappointed when Honor visited Sol and had such an easy time invading the Cradle of Civilization. Sol had enough time over the centuries to seed the system so densely you can walk from one end to the next on mines. Forts should have been getting in each other's way.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:They did have the time. But when they had 450 SDs parked there, they thought that wasn't needed. By number of hulls, that was the best defended system anywhere. Forts that might have existed were deactivated, mines weren't replaced when they expired, et. Those SDs became obsolete overnight, far too short a time for the SLN to change strategy and prepare another defence.

I hate that preferred excuse. Though true it must be, sad it surely is. Although Alphas aren't Silly Sollies.

While we're on the subject of hypering into the Darius system all half-cocked, what strategy should an opposing Navy use regarding it's fleet auxiliaries? You can't keep the CWs away from an unseen enemy. Nor can you keep your CO, usually at the center of the largest formation, away from the enemy either.

cthia wrote:While we're on the subject of hypering into the Darius system all half-cocked, what strategy should an opposing Navy use regarding it's fleet auxiliaries? You can't keep the CWs away from an unseen enemy. Nor can you keep your CO, usually at the center of the largest formation, away from the enemy either.

It appear that the RMN has carefully considered this and has determined that their plot armor is perfectly adequate.

Will the MA produce LACs and carriers? How nasty will their LACs be? Will they swarm like fire flies?

One thing regarding the RFN I'd like to know, where on the tech curve will their Navy be? They can't show tech reminiscent of the MAN.

@kzt above...

cthia wrote:I think it'll be unavoidable. Somebody has to be the scout, the point man. The CO tasked with that maiden voyage is going to be ripped a new heinie. It'll be worse than the strip of hide the Havenites tore off Honor's Heine.

When scouting a potentially hostile system, you don't translate at the hyperlimit. So as discussed in another thread (or was it this thread?), the time between translation and interception is going to be at a minimum 3 minutes, probably a lot more. There's enough time for the scout to arrive, make some determination of what it is seeing, then cycle the hypergenerators and translate out before interception. You said yourself that this is a scout: this means the ship that is doing the recon is going to go to battle stations before translating into the system. They know they're looking for an enemy that is trying to hide, has very good stealth technology, and a brand, new propulsion system.

In fact, the scout does not need to arrive anywhere near the hyperlimit. They can easily arrive 2 light-hours out (which here would be inside the orbit of Uranus) and off the plane of the ecliptic. From that position, just collect old light. Even if it is too far for gravitic sensors and Darius is practically under EmCon all the time, they can still see the ships and shipyards and stations if they know where to look: in orbit of a planet. And are the freighters carrying ore and miners in the asteroid belt(s) stealthed? Plus, the scout can arrive, determine it's an inhabited and industrialised system that is not on the charts, fire some Ghost Rider droness, translate out to another point and recover those Ghost Riders with all the juicy details of the system.

Worst case scenario, if the first scout is intercepted, the GA knows a short list of which systems it was lost in.

All of this to conclude that regardless of what happens to the first mission, the second mission to the system will not come unprepared. That's why I was asking why you thought that the RMN would come half-cocked: I simply don't see it happening.

Unless the admiral in command suffers from Acute Plot Paralysis Syndrome.

cthia wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
They did have the time. But when they had 450 SDs parked there, they thought that wasn't needed. By number of hulls, that was the best defended system anywhere. Forts that might have existed were deactivated, mines weren't replaced when they expired, et. Those SDs became obsolete overnight, far too short a time for the SLN to change strategy and prepare another defence.

I hate that preferred excuse. Though true it must be, sad it surely is. Although Alphas aren't Silly Sollies.

Having a defense as large as any other single polity's nation's entire navy is an excuse? Or one that has 1/5 of the entire Wall of a 1800 system polity concentrated in a single system? maybe Sol's position 500 light years inside the SL might have thought that defense in depth was a good idea. Or that traditionally, the only close in Wormhole was held by an extensible ally who heavily fortified their wormhole.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:I think it'll be unavoidable. Somebody has to be the scout, the point man. The CO tasked with that maiden voyage is going to be ripped a new heinie. It'll be worse than the strip of hide the Havenites tore off Honor's Heine.

When scouting a potentially hostile system, you don't translate at the hyperlimit. So as discussed in another thread (or was it this thread?), the time between translation and interception is going to be at a minimum 3 minutes, probably a lot more. There's enough time for the scout to arrive, make some determination of what it is seeing, then cycle the hypergenerators and translate out before interception. You said yourself that this is a scout: this means the ship that is doing the recon is going to go to battle stations before translating into the system. They know they're looking for an enemy that is trying to hide, has very good stealth technology, and a brand, new propulsion system.

In fact, the scout does not need to arrive anywhere near the hyperlimit. They can easily arrive 2 light-hours out (which here would be inside the orbit of Uranus) and off the plane of the ecliptic. From that position, just collect old light. Even if it is too far for gravitic sensors and Darius is practically under EmCon all the time, they can still see the ships and shipyards and stations if they know where to look: in orbit of a planet. And are the freighters carrying ore and miners in the asteroid belt(s) stealthed? Plus, the scout can arrive, determine it's an inhabited and industrialised system that is not on the charts, fire some Ghost Rider droness, translate out to another point and recover those Ghost Riders with all the juicy details of the system.

Worst case scenario, if the first scout is intercepted, the GA knows a short list of which systems it was lost in.

All of this to conclude that regardless of what happens to the first mission, the second mission to the system will not come unprepared. That's why I was asking why you thought that the RMN would come half-cocked: I simply don't see it happening.

Unless the admiral in command suffers from Acute Plot Paralysis Syndrome.

To add to scouting from a distance - remember that it took 13 hours iirc for the quick reaction squadron to reach the point the Sharks entered Manticore space. Now jumping in 2 light months out is a little ridiculous, but it shows that a response team isn't going to be able to jump on top of a scout and intercept it minutes after they translate if they exit at a random point a distance past the hyper limit.