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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.

Theemile wrote: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.

It IS an excuse, isn't it? Aren't you listing the reasons why the system wasn't heavily seeded? These reasons are the same damn excuses they have to offer their own citizens of why their centuries of taxes did Jack Shit when a woman off her meds came calling. I mean, it isn't like they didn't know what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Wait, they know that now. Well, not completely. The MA may still have a lesson or two to teach them.

I understand. There is no need to bother ourselves with additional security and place a fence around our property, because everyone knows we have a huge family and they're always at home. The White House doesn't need all that extra security either.

Will the MA be as arrogant? No. Will the GA ever be as arrogant? No. But the Sollies, it's okay for them to be arrogant when it comes to protecting the Cradle of Civilization, because, well, there are better things to do with all the money they save. It makes a great lining for the Mandarin's pockets.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote: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.

It IS an excuse, isn't it? Aren't you listing the reasons why the system wasn't heavily seeded? These reasons are the same damn excuses they have to offer their own citizens of why their centuries of taxes did Jack Shit when a woman off her meds came calling. I mean, it isn't like they didn't know what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Wait, they know that now. Well, not completely. The MA may still have a lesson or two to teach them.

I understand. There is no need to bother ourselves with additional security and place a fence around our property, because everyone knows we have a huge family and they're always at home. The White House doesn't need all that extra security either.

Will the MA be as arrogant? No. Will the GA ever be as arrogant? No. But the Sollies, it's okay for them to be arrogant when it comes to protecting the Cradle of Civilization, because, well, there are better things to do with all the money they save. It makes a great lining for the Mandarin's pockets.

It's an excuse to point out that Sol was the single solar system with the greatest mass of defenses ever in human history (if lately no longer the most effective) when asked why it wasn't better defended?

It wasn't better defended specifically because they were ignorant of what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Or at least hadn't had time to react in the first clue they'd gotten of how much the threat had changed. Michelle's BC's effortlessly blowing away Byng's flagship was a mere 16 months before the surrender of Sol. We're told, repeatedly, that the Mandarins and the SLN, were ignorant of the revolutions in naval combat occurring in the Haven sector.


But mines aren't the solution. The reason it isn't heavily mines is because space is ludicrously vast, and mines are ineffectual on the scale of an entire solar system. To just have some single mine (assume danger radius of 30,000 km) covering nearly every point within the hyper limit would require 2.3 quadrillion mines.
(and of course a single mine at a time isn't enough to kill any warship; except in the most unlikely circumstances). To have laid that, insufficient, number of mines starting the instant they got the first clue that their existing ships might be outclassed, and their very heavy defenses might not be as effective as they'd assumed, would require them building and deploying 13 million per minute for the entire 16 months.

You'd get far more defense spending time and money on defending starships.

And of course that already ludicrous minefield wouldn't have helped much when Honor showed up because Kingsford capitulated to her demands and stood down Sol's defenses while she was still barely (1 LS) inside the hyper limit (and so traveled through the engagement arc of about 10 mines). Plus there's no way Sol could have been mined that heavily without Manticore knowing about it; so it it'd been mined like that she'd just have made here demands from 2 LS further out. Her Apollo missiles don't care about mine fields, so it barely affects her ability to destroy battle fleet from ludicrously beyond its own range.

Theemile wrote: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?

Jonathan_S wrote:It's an excuse to point out that Sol was the single solar system with the greatest mass of defenses ever in human history (if lately no longer the most effective) when asked why it wasn't better defended?

It wasn't better defended specifically because they were ignorant of what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Or at least hadn't had time to react in the first clue they'd gotten of how much the threat had changed. Michelle's BC's effortlessly blowing away Byng's flagship was a mere 16 months before the surrender of Sol. We're told, repeatedly, that the Mandarins and the SLN, were ignorant of the revolutions in naval combat occurring in the Haven sector.

It should be pointed out that the mothball fleet in Sol's orbit no more protects Sol, than the James River Reserve Fleet protects Norfolk.

It is mentioned in the books somewhere that the big money is in building an SD for the SLN and they mothball the oldest ones as the newest ones enter the fleet. But there is no way they could man all those ships, much less ensure that all were equipped with the latest gear; unless they got the funding increase that would come with a Declaration of War.

Theemile wrote: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.

That was 1 light-month out. 31 days * 24 hours/day / 62c = 12 hours, so that's how long it took for the detection to propagate all the way to the ships in Manticore. The other hour is the time for the ships to travel to the locus of the signal.

At one light-month out, you can't tell much about a system. So it will really depend on how much paranoia Darius is in: is it in nearly complete EmCon at all times? Then translating 1 light-month out is not going to tell you almost anything. The GA needs to assume that the base of operations is under EmCon, so they need to come a lot closer.

In fact, the GA does not know that it's a fully inhabited, industrialised planet. The MAlign base of operations could be around a red dwarf and there are hundreds of billions of those in the Galaxy. Exhaustive search is impractical under current technology levels, even in the limited volume of the Settled Galaxy.

As impractical as finding Bolthole was and yet the RMN tried.

Jonathan_S wrote:It wasn't better defended specifically because they were ignorant of what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Or at least hadn't had time to react in the first clue they'd gotten of how much the threat had changed. Michelle's BC's effortlessly blowing away Byng's flagship was a mere 16 months before the surrender of Sol. We're told, repeatedly, that the Mandarins and the SLN, were ignorant of the revolutions in naval combat occurring in the Haven sector.

And of those 16 months, the SLN spent 8 arguing that the technology didn't exist and the reports had been greatly exaggerated. It wasn't until the Second Battle of Manticore that the SLN and the Mandarins finally accepted that the GA had the mobile firepower to threaten the SL, not just to defend itself.

At that point, they did try to correct their mistake. There just wasn't enough time before the Battle of Sol. But do note how the SLN and their contractors were innovating fast. It would have happened -- it will happen -- in due time.

tlb wrote:

Theemile wrote: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?

Jonathan_S wrote:It's an excuse to point out that Sol was the single solar system with the greatest mass of defenses ever in human history (if lately no longer the most effective) when asked why it wasn't better defended?

It wasn't better defended specifically because they were ignorant of what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Or at least hadn't had time to react in the first clue they'd gotten of how much the threat had changed. Michelle's BC's effortlessly blowing away Byng's flagship was a mere 16 months before the surrender of Sol. We're told, repeatedly, that the Mandarins and the SLN, were ignorant of the revolutions in naval combat occurring in the Haven sector.

It should be pointed out that the mothball fleet in Sol's orbit no more protects Sol, than the James River Reserve Fleet protects Norfolk.

It is mentioned in the books somewhere that the big money is in building an SD for the SLN and they mothball the oldest ones as the newest ones enter the fleet. But there is no way they could man all those ships, much less ensure that all were equipped with the latest gear; unless they got the funding increase that would come with a Declaration of War.

The 450 SDs we are discussing were active ships in the Sol system and surrendered to be destroyed - we are not counting the 1000+ ships that were in the Reserve at Hyperion 1 (and destroyed).

And I correct myself - 450 ships actually represents fewer than 1 in 3 wallers of what the SLN had available to deploy in the SL Core - out of nearly 2400 ships active and in maintenance, 500 ships had been destroyed and 600+ had been deployed to Tasmania for "Raging Justice 2", leaving fewer than 1300 ships in the core, some of which were still in repair yards.

Side note, I recently heard a blurb attributed to Colin Powell that the US attack on Panama in the 1980s, named Operation "Just Cause", was named so, in order that whenever the operation's critics attack the operation, they used the phrase "just cause" repeatedly in their diatribe, thus giving it legitimacy to the lay person. Did this influence "Raging Justice"?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

Theemile wrote: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.

That was 1 light-month out. 31 days * 24 hours/day / 62c = 12 hours, so that's how long it took for the detection to propagate all the way to the ships in Manticore. The other hour is the time for the ships to travel to the locus of the signal.

At one light-month out, you can't tell much about a system. So it will really depend on how much paranoia Darius is in: is it in nearly complete EmCon at all times? Then translating 1 light-month out is not going to tell you almost anything. The GA needs to assume that the base of operations is under EmCon, so they need to come a lot closer.

In fact, the GA does not know that it's a fully inhabited, industrialised planet. The MAlign base of operations could be around a red dwarf and there are hundreds of billions of those in the Galaxy. Exhaustive search is impractical under current technology levels, even in the limited volume of the Settled Galaxy.

As impractical as finding Bolthole was and yet the RMN tried.

I wasn't advocating jumping 1 or 2 light months out to scout a system, but merely pointing out that if you were to scout a system from say 1 light minute or 2 past the hyperlimit, that a quick reaction force would still require a significant time period to reach you - enough to cycle the hyper generators, take some initial observations, fire off a couple targeted probes, and jump out to a safe point.

Theemile wrote:The 450 SDs we are discussing were active ships in the Sol system and surrendered to be destroyed - we are not counting the 1000+ ships that were in the Reserve at Hyperion 1 (and destroyed).

And I correct myself - 450 ships actually represents fewer than 1 in 3 wallers of what the SLN had available to deploy in the SL Core - out of nearly 2400 ships active and in maintenance, 500 ships had been destroyed and 600+ had been deployed to Tasmania for "Raging Justice 2", leaving fewer than 1300 ships in the core, some of which were still in repair yards.

Thank you for the numbers, I do not follow them as well as I do the political aspects of the stories. Does this include the consideration that only about one third of the ships sent to attack Beowulf returned?

The Alighment is MASSIVLY arrogant.
Even after the latest round of missteps in getting the SLN to run Operation Buccaneer and then sneeking the Silver Bullet into Beowulf in conjuction with the three bombs on the habitats, they just had to do the equivelent of posting a sign at Beowulf "Look at us, we can kill tens of millions of your civilians and there is nothing you can do to stop us". They might as well have signed it.

A scout tranlating back to normal space way out from Darius (having first determined that there was a system there to look at) probably isn't going to fact the level of system sensor and early warning net as Manticore but it is possible. Unless the scout essentialy comes in ballistic from where it made it's translation, it's going to be showing energy. While it will see all the energy signatures and transmissions comming from the system and eventualy get to see where anything using an impeller wedge is located and moving, it is not going to see any active spider drive ships.

Two little challanges there. One is that even with minimal maneuvering to shape a course by or perhaps just outside the hyper limit, they are going to have to maneuver and sending RDs means that unless they want to have them self destruct way the hell after exiting the system, would be picking them up on the "far side". The other is that I would expect the Alignment to have spider drive ships posted out on picket duty and that is what is going to respond to any scouting penetration. The scout isn't going to see it comming and the 1st time it becomes aware it has a live problem will be with missles incoming. Heck, get a Grazer Torpedo on an intercept course and you won't know it's there till the Grazer burns right through the ship- lengthwise.

At the moment neither PRH or SEM have any way to detect the spider drive. Even when the manage to isolate information from the attack on Manticore and Grayson (and we don't have much information about what Grayson may or may not have in the way of readings) they will then have to figure out how to generate the same types of emissions in order to work on developing a system that will reliabley pick them up and track them.

Also at the moment, the best way of finding Darius is finding a person who knows something about how to get there without death by nanite. After the Final Flourish, that may only be someone who is operating one of the Alignment special operations ships and some people in the RF. Nobody has any idea that the RF is a catspaw of the Alighment.

It is POSSIBLE that the Mannerheim SDF bought 1st generation Cataphracts from Technodyne and so will have DDMs but given that they are supposed to be looking like they only have SLN level (and probably a generation older at least) because they were only supposed to be forming a defensive alliance against problems from the shattering of the League, they are not going to be trotting out new tech just now. They don't really need it. They might be going up SLN level ships but probably mostly in the warlord capasity and not likely anything beyond a BC.

A real question is if the Alignment is going to take another swipe at the GA or Beowulf out of spite. They could have whole departments just thining up false flags and diversion tactics to cause trouble.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote: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.

It IS an excuse, isn't it? Aren't you listing the reasons why the system wasn't heavily seeded? These reasons are the same damn excuses they have to offer their own citizens of why their centuries of taxes did Jack Shit when a woman off her meds came calling. I mean, it isn't like they didn't know what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE. Wait, they know that now. Well, not completely. The MA may still have a lesson or two to teach them.

I understand. There is no need to bother ourselves with additional security and place a fence around our property, because everyone knows we have a huge family and they're always at home. The White House doesn't need all that extra security either.

Will the MA be as arrogant? No. Will the GA ever be as arrogant? No. But the Sollies, it's okay for them to be arrogant when it comes to protecting the Cradle of Civilization, because, well, there are better things to do with all the money they save. It makes a great lining for the Mandarin's pockets.

Jonathan_S wrote:It's an excuse to point out that Sol was the single solar system with the greatest mass of defenses ever in human history (if lately no longer the most effective) when asked why it wasn't better defended?

Yes!

And for the record, your claim is only true comparing warships. It falls flat if comparing mines, and forts. Bracketing the fact that it fails if comparing warships at the end of the day.

So what? They had 450 SDs. Round it off to 1000 SDs, and it's still an excuse.

Best analogy I can think of: A shootout in the Old West.

There are 450 men inside covering the front of the Ponderosa that is about to be attacked. There are 450 more men inside covering the rear. But nobody was as smart as Clint Eastwood, so there was nobody covering the roof.

Jonathan_S wrote:It wasn't better defended specifically because they were ignorant of what lurked in the great expanse that is THE UNIVERSE.

That is my point! And it is EXACTLY what I said, albeit, I was being facetious. How the hell can ANYONE know what lurks in the great unknown that is THE UNIVERSE?

I accept institutional arrogance and not simply because I'm force-fed it in the series, but because institutional arrogance is a thing. But it can't be the excuse for everything.

Okay, the SLN didn't fear any of the KNOWN contestants in the HV. But we both seem to agree that they COULDN'T have known of every threat in the Universe. How could anyone have! I recall a discussion in some thread about "RFC's" likely intransigence regarding introducing unknown aliens in the HV at some point. There will never be any Borg, Species 9572, the Dominion, Cardassians, Klingons, or any other unknown alien species. Even bracketing the fact that there IS the Malign. But even if we bracket that fact, we cannot erase human nature. The same human nature existing on Earth that fears invasion from an an alien species.

And guess what? There IS an alien species. The MA is more alien than human.

BUT! That is from the mind of the author. There is no way in HELL anybody living in the HV can know that. I don't know of any other Navy that didn't do as much as they could to defend their system. What makes it all even less of an excuse, is that the SLN weren't preoccupied for most of their existence fighting battle after battle. They weren't losing a Queen's coffer full of money on war. They weren't always playing catch-up like poor Shannon. What the hell were they doing? They are the only navy with the time to ponder the unknown. It isn't like any unknown actually existed.

HAVEN: Mines. Forts.

MANTICORE: Mines. Forts.

ANDERMANI: Not sure, but I've laid down my bet.


The Cradle of Civilization should not have crimped on ANY defenses. I'm not saying that more mines and more forts would have helped. But dammit, they should have been there anyway. No other Navy thought warships alone was enough defense. And the Sol system wasn't ALWAYS brainwashed by the Mandarins. Hell, those 450 SDs were strategically tethered to the Home System by ball-and-chain since the system couldn't do a damn thing to protect itself. I'm sorry guys, I'll never accept any excuse why the richest system in the HV, and for so damn long, didn't have forts on top of forts on top of forts. It isn't like they couldn't afford it. It isn't like they weren't aware of the IDEA of Forts. It isn't like THEY didn't have the time. Regardless of whether it would have helped at the end of the day that Honor went off her meds. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense that the Cerberus system was better defended than the Sol system! Bracketing warships. I recall visitors having to tiptoe thru Cerberus. We're talking about the Cradle of Civilization.

And they didn't even scratch Honor's paint! They didn't scratch the fucking paint. They didn't scratch it!

PLEASE DON'T FAIL ME DARIUS.

Jonathan_S wrote:Or at least hadn't had time to react in the first clue they'd gotten of how much the threat had changed. Michelle's BC's effortlessly blowing away Byng's flagship was a mere 16 months before the surrender of Sol. We're told, repeatedly, that the Mandarins and the SLN, were ignorant of the revolutions in naval combat occurring in the Haven sector.

None of that should ever have been a factor. The system should have been better equipped with mines and forts long before Manticore and Haven even lost their diapers. We ARE talking about the Cradle. You armchair strategists are partly what makes me feel this way. I keep thinking how many of YOU must exist in the Sol system. Armchair strategists who are going to be analyzing the aftermath of what actually happened. They are going to want to know "Why didn't we have more Forts? More mines? And something that no other system thought of?" I shudder to think of the discussions raging in most Solarian households after the orbital debris settles.

I expected a million fucking LACs in the Sol system, even if they were all worthless. People excited about finally getting some action. Even if they died. The SLN didn't have any Quality, anywhere! A hard pill to swallow in itself. Fine, I'll swallow it anyway and choke on it.

But Quantity wasn't even a factor either, in a system so large, so old, and so rich. Except in the area of warships. And they really didn't have a quantitative advantage in warships (not against Haven) if the Lion's share were mothballed.

Jonathan_S wrote:But mines aren't the solution. The reason it isn't heavily mines is because space is ludicrously vast, and mines are ineffectual on the scale of an entire solar system. To just have some single mine (assume danger radius of 30,000 km) covering nearly every point within the hyper limit would require 2.3 quadrillion mines.
(and of course a single mine at a time isn't enough to kill any warship; except in the most unlikely circumstances). To have laid that, insufficient, number of mines starting the instant they got the first clue that their existing ships might be outclassed, and their very heavy defenses might not be as effective as they'd assumed, would require them building and deploying 13 million per minute for the entire 16 months.

More excuses to tell their pissed off citizens who paid taxes for centuries.

Jonathan_S wrote:You'd get far more defense spending time and money on defending starships.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the SLN make the mistake of using THAT as an excuse to the average armchair strategist in the Solarian street!

"WHICH YOU DIDN'T DO!"

Jonathan_S wrote:And of course that already ludicrous minefield wouldn't have helped much when Honor showed up because Kingsford capitulated to her demands and stood down Sol's defenses while she was still barely (1 LS) inside the hyper limit (and so traveled through the engagement arc of about 10 mines). Plus there's no way Sol could have been mined that heavily without Manticore knowing about it; so it it'd been mined like that she'd just have made here demands from 2 LS further out. Her Apollo missiles don't care about mine fields, so it barely affects her ability to destroy battle fleet from ludicrously beyond its own range.

She AT THE VERY LEAST should have had to make her demands from further out.

"Mrs. Chicken Shit! Come tell us to our face!"

THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION DIDN'T EVEN SCRATCH THE FUCKING PAINT!

One of my friends said quite some time ago that he enjoyed UH except the main battle. He opined...

"Honor could have rented her warships from a tuxedo company, and not lost any of the deposit."