EXTRY! EXTRY! THE SLN CONQUERS THE MBS!

What if the SLN conquered the MBS in 1903 PD., just months after the Manticoran Alliance is formed?

We haven't seen the aftermath of a Superpower who has been conquered by a totally selfish polity. The Alliance conquered Masada and the Masadan's family jewels are being squeezed, but gently. I'd like to think if Manticore or Haven conquered each other during both Beth and Eloise's reign the terms would have been as favorable as possible. But what if an unsavory element conquered the MBS, like the 800# gorilla? What terms would the Mandarins have given? What would be the dispensation of the MWJ? What is an ally supposed to do in case it's partner is conquered? Does Grayson have any legal obligations to honor the SLN's victory? What becomes of the Queen? The RMN? Project Gram and all of its secrets? Can the SLN occupy the planet?

I know it is unlikely to ever have happened this way, but what if it did? What if the Mandarins pulled a rabbit out of their collective orifices, activated a lot of the reserve, realized what they were up against as early as 1903, maintained OpSec, and launched a successful attack against Manticore?

How cruel can a conqueror be? Would the SLN be able to prevent an uprising? What of Beowulf?

cthia wrote:What if the SLN conquered the MBS in 1903 PD., just months after the Manticoran Alliance is formed?

We haven't seen the aftermath of a Superpower who has been conquered by a totally selfish polity. The Alliance conquered Masada and the Masadan's family jewels are being squeezed, but gently. I'd like to think if Manticore or Haven conquered each other during both Beth and Eloise's reign the terms would have been as favorable as possible. But what if an unsavory element conquered the MBS, like the 800# gorilla? What terms would the Mandarins have given? What would be the dispensation of the MWJ? What is an ally supposed to do in case it's partner is conquered? Does Grayson have any legal obligations to honor the SLN's victory? What becomes of the Queen? The RMN? Project Gram and all of its secrets? Can the SLN occupy the planet?

We explored a lot of this in the "Alternate History" thread, though that was the PRH conquering Manticore, not the SL.

We can't answer what terms the Mandarins would have given without knowing the motivations for having invaded in the first place. One follows from the other. So why would they have launched the invasion? Please explain their thinking about that and how they could have pulled it off.

Centuries of festering resentment isn't enough?

cthia wrote:Centuries of festering resentment isn't enough?

No, because it's centuries of resentment. What changed? Why did they break the status quo? From their point of view, Manties are just another set of neobarbs, only slightly more uppity than most. League expansion will get to them in a century or two, so there was no need to do anything.

If they decided to invade, they need a motivating factor, a goal. That will dictate how they treat operations in the conquered Manticore system. The goal will also decide strategy, which decides tactics and operations. How Manticore reacted to those and when it found out, how much damage it inflicted on the SLN invading force, will dictate how the League treats the Manticore citizens too.

The Mandarins are corrupt, but not lunatics. They don't decide to mount an invasion with the Battle Fleet on a whim. Most importantly, they don't do anything unless it benefits them specifically.

I don't think it's plausible that the SLN would decided to attack out of the blue. But let's assume someone managed to engineer an incident that pushed the SLN into war against Manticore.

In 1903 if the SLN is willing to throw enough numbers at it they can win. At that point Manticore should already have towed pods; though they obviously haven't combat tested them. But even with those their latest SDs seem able to weather, at most, 3 or 4 to one odds in a sustained fight. (If they get to keep have a series of 1 on 1 odds with resupply of missile pods then they could kill far more than 4 times their own number - but lets assume after no more than a misstep or three the SLN simply throws something the size of Raging Justice at them).

So - something triggers this and Manticore has now lost. The SLN took more losses than they have in their entire history; but numbers told out in the end.

None of their allies have any sizable fraction of their strength. Erewhon may try to tie itself back to the League as the best remaining option against Haven's expansion. Grayson probably puts their head down and hopes neither the League nor Haven go after them, ditto for Alizon and Zanzibar. Talbot is probably worst off because they must have a good sized economy to have been able to operate an SD yard and build and field a squadron or two of wallers. So rich enough to be tempting to the still cash starved Haven, no previous association with the League, and not strong enough to hold Haven off.

As for Manticore - OFS is going to take a big chunk of the revenue of the Junction as their fees, Transtellars probably get to monopolize trade and take over domestic industries. Kind of like what OFS normally does, except against a much more lucrative target and all justified as war reparations. (Since they'd have a hard time selling it as the normal spiel about providing protection after just fighting a small war to gain control and with Manticore still having more friends, and far better access to the League media markets than normal OFS victims - so they need that different narrative to explain the cash grab they're making. Plus they can keep using the war as a reason to block any movement of Manticore out of protectorate and into Shell status - despite having a better economy than any existing Shell system.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:If they decided to invade, they need a motivating factor, a goal. That will dictate how they treat operations in the conquered Manticore system. The goal will also decide strategy, which decides tactics and operations. How Manticore reacted to those and when it found out, how much damage it inflicted on the SLN invading force, will dictate how the League treats the Manticore citizens too.

The Mandarins are corrupt, but not lunatics. They don't decide to mount an invasion with the Battle Fleet on a whim. Most importantly, they don't do anything unless it benefits them specifically.

Wouldn't they (or a more forward thinking Malign) have to engineer a shooting incident, so the SLN can justify this movement on Manticore under the self-defense clause of the Constitution? In this time period, I am not aware of anyplace where the two forces would make contact; since it is long before Torch or the Talbot Quadrant. Maybe get a League affiliated planet to confiscate some merchantmen in a situation where the RMN would try to intercede and be met by a Frontier Fleet ship?

tlb wrote:Wouldn't they (or a more forward thinking Malign) have to engineer a shooting incident, so the SLN can justify this movement on Manticore under the self-defense clause of the Constitution? In this time period, I am not aware of anyplace where the two forces would make contact; since it is long before Torch or the Talbot Quadrant. Maybe get a League affiliated planet to confiscate some merchantmen in a situation where the RMN would try to intercede and be met by a Frontier Fleet ship?

Indeed and that's my point: there's no motivating factor presented so far. The reason why this invasion came about is very important in trying to guess how Manticore would be treated after it.

Jonathan_S wrote:(If they get to keep have a series of 1 on 1 odds with resupply of missile pods then they could kill far more than 4 times their own number - but lets assume after no more than a misstep or three the SLN simply throws something the size of Raging Justice at them).

One Raging Justice isn't sufficient in 1903. It might be in 1905 after the war with Haven starts and the RMN has to deploy a considerable chunk of its wall away from home to cover the allies. But in 1903, the entire wall is sitting in the Manticore Binary System. The RMN doesn't have 186 SDs and 121 DNs yet (those are the 1905 numbers), but they have sufficient many in 1903 that a Raging Justice with 430 SD is not going to outnumber 2:1. Remember that the Gryphons and Sphinx are the toughest and most capable SDs out there at this time, capable of firing continuously for 2 hours. They and the two classes before them (Anduril and Victory) were designed from the ground up to fight in missile exchanges. Meanwhile, the SLN of 1920 was fielding SDs that massed as much as the RMN's dreadnoughts or the Manticore-class SD of the 1740s (not a typo!).

So if you bring 430 of the wall against 250 Manticoran units, you're not going to be a happy camper. And maybe Beowulf does send its three dozen SDs to thicken Manticore's defences. They'd be useful and I'd put the BSDF's SDs somewhere just shy of the Sphinx class.

The battle would end before the Manticore System is conquered. I suppose of the 430, 200 get destroyed, 50 are not battle-worthy but are repairable, 50 get pressed into service immediately and 100-130 get to leave and report back. Of course, unlike the actual Second Battle of Manticore, the RMN would take losses, serious ones (like the first Battle of Manticore).

The SLN would have to stomach sending a second Raging Justice to conquer the MBS. That's why I said that nothing short of half the full Battle Fleet will accomplish the goal.

This is why it wouldn't be done on a whim.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:One Raging Justice isn't sufficient in 1903. It might be in 1905 after the war with Haven starts and the RMN has to deploy a considerable chunk of its wall away from home to cover the allies. But in 1903, the entire wall is sitting in the Manticore Binary System. The RMN doesn't have 186 SDs and 121 DNs yet (those are the 1905 numbers), but they have sufficient many in 1903 that a Raging Justice with 430 SD is not going to outnumber 2:1. Remember that the Gryphons and Sphinx are the toughest and most capable SDs out there at this time, capable of firing continuously for 2 hours. They and the two classes before them (Anduril and Victory) were designed from the ground up to fight in missile exchanges. Meanwhile, the SLN of 1920 was fielding SDs that massed as much as the RMN's dreadnoughts or the Manticore-class SD of the 1740s (not a typo!).

So if you bring 430 of the wall against 250 Manticoran units, you're not going to be a happy camper. And maybe Beowulf does send its three dozen SDs to thicken Manticore's defences. They'd be useful and I'd put the BSDF's SDs somewhere just shy of the Sphinx class.

The battle would end before the Manticore System is conquered. I suppose of the 430, 200 get destroyed, 50 are not battle-worthy but are repairable, 50 get pressed into service immediately and 100-130 get to leave and report back. Of course, unlike the actual Second Battle of Manticore, the RMN would take losses, serious ones (like the first Battle of Manticore).

The SLN would have to stomach sending a second Raging Justice to conquer the MBS. That's why I said that nothing short of half the full Battle Fleet will accomplish the goal.

This is why it wouldn't be done on a whim.

You're right. I was lazy and didn't go back and look up the RMN fleet strength or the number of ships in Raging Justice; which led me to mistakenly assume a greater numerical imbalance than there would have been.

Throwing less than 500 SLN SDs against a massed force of over 200 RMN wallers, with their towed pods, should lead to a SLN loss. (A hard fought one as you say; not without significant losses on the RMN side; but a loss)

Jonathan_S wrote:Throwing less than 500 SLN SDs against a massed force of over 200 RMN wallers, with their towed pods, should lead to a SLN loss. (A hard fought one as you say; not without significant losses on the RMN side; but a loss)

And this is if someone doesn't have the bright idea of sending them through the Junction...

The other thing is that this would not be the opening gambit. Not even if the SL leadership wanted complete surprise and assurance of victory would they throw moe than 200 SDs at the problem. At worst, assuming complete manoeuvring by the MAlign behind the scenes, they'd send 1:1 with Manticore's official waller count. And even then I'm giving the SL far too much credit; they'd never even consider that they couldn't achieve their goals with numerical inferiority and they'd also not believe that a neobarb single-system monarchy could have 250 wallers in the first place! Remember that the Peep propaganda is going strong at this point, so this adds up.

Far more likely, if this is to happen, is the "misstep or three" you talked about. Or four. The first would be a Byng-level BatCruRun, sent to "scout" (officially) and cause the incident (unofficially). Then they'd demand passage through the Junction, which would be denied, causing a conflict with Beowulf. Then they'd actually try to do what Tsang didn't: push through. The RMN does not have invincibility at this point, so the BSDF would let Tsang through and they'd get slaughtered by the forts.

The third step would be to send a Crandall to Manticore via hyperspace, but in complete SLN arrogance they'd take a year and send 50 wallers only. Those would get defeated, with O'Cleary reporting through the Junction. Only then would they send Raging Justice. This would also be defeated, but badly weaken the RMN.

Two important things to note here:

First, this entire process takes multiple years. That means Manticore has time to get into war footing and look for allies, though I don't think anyone besides Grayson would ally with Manticore against the SL. And Grayson can't contribute much yet. Maybe Erewhon stands by its word in the MA and does send its DNs to defend Manticore. But it also gives Manticore time for Case Lacoön and squeeze the League diplomatically. Operation Nemesis is not possible the way Honor carried it out, but a variant with a full saturation missile launch could be effective. MDMs are not in the cards, but maybe Extended Range missiles can be rushed through and deployed via pods even if they are too big to be fired from tubes. Those would also exist in System Defence variants.

Second and most important, I still don't see a motivation for either the SL or the MAlign. For the SL motivation or lack thereof, I posted above. For the MAlign, at this point in time, the Detweiler Plan is still in full effect and they want to pit the PRH against the SL. They need the PRH to continue growing and a League controlling the Manticore Junction is a stopper in that. Moreover, they want Beowulf to be without allies and an SL-controlled (with Beowulf influence) Manticore is not that. So even if the Mandarins decided that some random RMN inspection or Merchant Marine action was the straw that broke the camel's back, the MAlign would not let them carry the invasion out.