Expansion of the Empire: where to?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We can't know what that asset could be. It could be Darius, it could be the Twins or one of the other two termini of the Felix Wormhole Junction. It could be Mannerheim or one of the RF systems.

It was Mesa itself. Prior to the Lynx Terminus being discovery, any Manticoran attack on Mesa would have to go the long way - and Mesa is roughly twice the distance from Manticore that Haven is.

Any attack force which used the Beowulf terminus risks major diplomatic blowback from the League(towards both Manticore & Beowulf), as well as potentially tipping Mesa off - civilian traffic from Beowulf could reach Visigoth long before the RMN force moved from Beowulf to Mesa by hyper. They certainly could not use the Visigoth-Mesa bridge.

Once a RMN node was established in Lynx, the Alignment lost that distance and any early-warning networks they had. The proof is in what happened, although it became somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy: Tenth Fleet on its own initiative showed up at Mesa before the entire Alignment hierarchy had evacuated.

But the writing was on the wall with the Lynx Terminus. If it weren't for that second war with Haven(which Mesa also helped provoke), Manticore was probably going to do something about Mesa eventually - not too long after High Ridge's government fell apart under its own demerits. Such a proposition became as easy as sending two battle squadrons to Silesia.

Theemile wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Mesa is relativly close to the Talbott Quadrant.
Visagoth is the closest wormhole to Mesa. Visagoth is (well, named but we are not sure it's yet a disclosed/announced member of the RF) Visagoth is very anti-genetic slavery which means that officilly would not let slavers use their wormhole but not clear if there was some level of smuggling going on. Mostly we see ships carrying slaves (and probably other things) head anywhere other than Visagoth to get -eventualy- where they need to go.

It's that Lynx is only a couple of light years from the Lynx Terminus, not that the terminus is only a couple of light years from Mesa.

And yes, there would have been no compelling reason for Manticore to go after Mesa from Talbott just because it was relativly close. The bigger impending conflict would have been with the League in the form of OFS and the Transtellars. Recall that Firebrand was ONE of the agents out looking to torment uprisings or at least stir the pots to provide a provocation or reason for OFS to be brought in and rescue some local goverment and put the system into Protectorate Status and start draining it's resources and money.

We have Meyers as an OFS Govenor's location with OFS in control with the local monarchy little more than a figurehead of a constitutional monarchy. There are lots of OFS clients and partners in the Quadrant as a whole (thoug it appears they are are more on the League side of the cluster) and OFS is going to expand as it becomes worth their while to pick off a system that is starting to become better off.

The whole Monica operation was to manufacture a minor "local" naval force to sieze the terminus by surprize and then bring in at least FF in large numbers if not some BF SDs to "assist" Monica in holding that end of the terminus with OFS then probably doing a faster absorption of the better system closer to the terminus. That was the Alignment working with a major smash & grab operation using Monica as the patsy (and if sucessfull they would have swallowed Monica whole) but as a provication to kick OFS and the League out to at least blunt Manticore's access to Talbott Quadrant though OFS would have "welcomed" all the trade that would flow though the terminus and fees into their pockets.

Monica alone wouldn't have thrown Manticore right at Mesa from the new contact point of of the terminus. No, that took the OFS (but Alignment hatched) idea to ferment revolts to interfear with the addition of the applicant systems to the SKM AND to cause problems elsewhere and frame Manticore for it by having people like Firebrand promising RMN help in overthrowing whaterver the local government was.
Monica's part of the plans were defeated and Monica itself (and it's "President") suitabley chastised but not hammered flat. After that, and with no other direct runs at Manticore by a "local" system and some transtellar help, Manticore would PROBABLY have been content to not really do much more than run commerce protection as well as secure it's new systems and start building them into the Kingdom. No reason to go after anybody beyond the apparent normal dislike for variouis Transtellars and knowing that they were going to have to watch OFS like a hawk.
But no, the Alignment has to go and not only start stiring up trouble in the area including manuvering 1st OFS and then dragging SLN into direct confrontations. And instead of minor incidents (other than Monica which got snuffed out early) which left footprints and fingerprints all over the place that this was way more than OFS and somebody elce was involved, someone who could not only convince planitary governments to do things, but to manipulate the SLN into conflict.

Nice way to screw up your own time table guys and gals! And Houdini would have been able to proceed as planned. And you would not have painted a truly large arrow pointing to Mesa with the flashing message WE ARE DOING ALL THIS TO YOU and nobody wouldl have have heard the term "Alignment" or had any idea that there was this very large and advanced shadow organization.
Sigh.

Brigade XO wrote:Nice way to screw up your own time table guys and gals! And Houdini would have been able to proceed as planned. And you would not have painted a truly large arrow pointing to Mesa with the flashing message WE ARE DOING ALL THIS TO YOU and nobody wouldl have have heard the term "Alignment" or had any idea that there was this very large and advanced shadow organization.
Sigh.

That's exactly the argument: they didn't have to poke at the scorpion-lion's lair. But they did and they had to accelerate Houdini. And this was without knowing for sure that Henke was coming, because she conquered the Madras Sector without word getting out.

Clearly the MAlign thought that they were on coming up on the final phase of The Plan. The existence of the clones of Albrecht Detweiler prove that; the fact that Houdini was even planned does too, plus the plans for and later actual building of a Leonard Detweiler class ship. So it's not like the time table was completely discarded.

But it was upset enough. Manticore moved much faster than they had anticipated. So why provoke that if they didn't have to? Why not wait for the eventual conflict between the Talbott Quadrant and OFS, half a decade down the line? They expected Haven to win, which would mean Haven would either control Talbott or at least the Lynx Terminus. So the conflict would have come.

What was so important that they had to act now?

Brigade XO wrote:Nice way to screw up your own time table guys and gals! And Houdini would have been able to proceed as planned. And you would not have painted a truly large arrow pointing to Mesa with the flashing message WE ARE DOING ALL THIS TO YOU and nobody wouldl have have heard the term "Alignment" or had any idea that there was this very large and advanced shadow organization.
Sigh.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's exactly the argument: they didn't have to poke at the scorpion-lion's lair. But they did and they had to accelerate Houdini. And this was without knowing for sure that Henke was coming, because she conquered the Madras Sector without word getting out.

Clearly the MAlign thought that they were on coming up on the final phase of The Plan. The existence of the clones of Albrecht Detweiler prove that; the fact that Houdini was even planned does too, plus the plans for and later actual building of a Leonard Detweiler class ship. So it's not like the time table was completely discarded.

But it was upset enough. Manticore moved much faster than they had anticipated. So why provoke that if they didn't have to? Why not wait for the eventual conflict between the Talbott Quadrant and OFS, half a decade down the line? They expected Haven to win, which would mean Haven would either control Talbott or at least the Lynx Terminus. So the conflict would have come.

What was so important that they had to act now?

We need to emphasis that Oyster Bay and the defection of Herlander Simões had as much to do with Manticore moving on Mesa as anything that happened in the Talbott Quadrant. But I do agree that the Lynx Junction was a trigger that set the Malign plans into motion. I think the other trigger was the realization that Manticore could win and that was what drove Oyster Bay.

If they had just let it go, it would still have been possible to engineer the confrontation with the League Navy at any time of their choosing. If anything, the Manty tech advantage meant that the Malign should have delayed their endgame until the SLN corrected some of the faults that they introduced.

tlb wrote:We need to emphasis that Oyster Bay and the defection of Herlander Simões had as much to do with Manticore moving on Mesa as anything that happened in the Talbott Quadrant. But I do agree that the Lynx Junction was a trigger that set the Malign plans into motion. I think the other trigger was the realization that Manticore could win and that was what drove Oyster Bay.

If they had just let it go, it would still have been possible to engineer the confrontation with the League Navy at any time of their choosing. If anything, the Manty tech advantage meant that the Malign should have delayed their endgame until the SLN corrected some of the faults that they introduced.

I agree that if Herlander hadn't come back from Mesa, Tenth Fleet would likely not have gone on to conquer Mesa. It might have stopped at liberating the Madras Sector. The logical leap that "someone stirring up the sector and blaming us for it" to "The Other Guys are the MAlign" couldn't be done without the information from Dr. Simões.

And he wouldn't have come from Mesa if Cachat and Zilwicki hadn't gone in the first place, which happened as a result of the capture of the Congo System and the realisation that Manpower wasn't operating for profit motive. And the founding of the Kingdom of Torch was early enough that could be causation for Mesa deciding to mess with Manticore.

But, again, why? We know there's something important in the Congo System (the wormhole leading to The Twins), but protecting that system does not lead to the conclusion of attacking in Talbott...

tlb wrote:We need to emphasis that Oyster Bay and the defection of Herlander Simões had as much to do with Manticore moving on Mesa as anything that happened in the Talbott Quadrant. But I do agree that the Lynx Junction was a trigger that set the Malign plans into motion. I think the other trigger was the realization that Manticore could win and that was what drove Oyster Bay.

If they had just let it go, it would still have been possible to engineer the confrontation with the League Navy at any time of their choosing. If anything, the Manty tech advantage meant that the Malign should have delayed their endgame until the SLN corrected some of the faults that they introduced.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I agree that if Herlander hadn't come back from Mesa, Tenth Fleet would likely not have gone on to conquer Mesa. It might have stopped at liberating the Madras Sector. The logical leap that "someone stirring up the sector and blaming us for it" to "The Other Guys are the MAlign" couldn't be done without the information from Dr. Simões.

And he wouldn't have come from Mesa if Cachat and Zilwicki hadn't gone in the first place, which happened as a result of the capture of the Congo System and the realisation that Manpower wasn't operating for profit motive. And the founding of the Kingdom of Torch was early enough that could be causation for Mesa deciding to mess with Manticore.

But, again, why? We know there's something important in the Congo System (the wormhole leading to The Twins), but protecting that system does not lead to the conclusion of attacking in Talbott...

Sprinters lined up on the blocks know that they cannot begin until the starter gives the signal, but they are so keyed up that some will jump the gun. The explanation may be as simple as that, they knew that the time was very near to the moment the plan was to be implemented and in their excitement mistook the discovery of the Lynx terminus and the imminent defeat of Haven as the sign to begin. If they had thought more clearly, then they would have realized that the plan needed to be re-calibrated once the Peoples' Republic was replaced by a Haven with its constitution restored.

Oyster Bay (like Houdini) was in the plan for a long time.

But what the Alignment did and the weight given to the information they had (or didin't have) lead to the decisions.
When I say information they didn't have it comes in two parts. 1st is that it seems that the network of spies and moles in Haven was mostly gone and they were not getting anywhere near the amount or quality of information out of there that had been comming under the regime prior to St. Pierre mounting his coup/revolution and you have State Security as well as the massive elimination of anybody which who were too well placed in the Legislariist ranks or believed to have what we would now call counter-revolutionary thoughts. They mostly just died in the purges and any who remained alive but were sent to Cerebus were just as out of the picture. 2nd is that Manticore actualy had a much better handle on security and appears to have had both a lower level of penetration where it mattered and more ability to move things from theory to funtioning systems.

Oyster Bay was originaly designed to trim back the capabilites (by destroying production etc) of what the Alignment created as the instrument to shatter the SL- that being Haven. But a couple of things happened. One was King Roger and his drive to build up Manticore's Navy plus weapons and other tech development which did suceed- and the security was good enough to keep ALL of that from the Alignment. The other was that Haven had returned to Republic of Haven and though not perhaps us useful as the pre-war Haven with the Dole, was going to be just fine when confronted by a League that was going to be pushed to crushing it once it had the Junction and eventualy everything else in the Manticorain Alliance

Oh the other hand, by the time the truce between Haven and Manticore fell apart (dam the Haven Secty State), the Alignment -now knowing that Bolt Hole at least existied- and apparently still wanting Haven as the weapon to shatter the League- (because Manticore victorious would NOT have embarked on a new round of Havenite type conquests) sought to cripple Manticore (and Grayson) in the anticipation that Haven would immediatly strike at the now helpless Manticore and gain - amoung other things- all that nifty tech.
Besides, the Oyster Bay equipment was -except for Spider Drive and the Graser Torps- was still in the development stages and there were not either enough ships (the test bed Sharks and the Ghosts etc with the LD's bearly started) not available to hit both Manticore and Haven to cut them both back.

So the very much scratched up attack-though a compleat surprize and very effective- was launched against Manticore and Grayson it did make it blindingly clear to Manticore (White Haven etc and so the Government & Military) that there was a major unknown power out there with serious new tech capabilites and really did seem to be the same one that was screwing around with eveybody in Talbott- which showed a penetration into the League with the use of the two SLN fleets and other things.

So the Alignmente well and truly outed itself as a major if unknown power with vast reach and screwing with everybody from the shadows.
IN THE PROCESS THE ALIGNMENTE JUMPED THE GUN by advancing Oyster Bay, Houdini, gettind in direct conflict with Manticore through it's manipulations in Talbott.... and in doing the one thing they were never intending to do- come out into knowlege as the pupetmaster state and give people the information that a lot of what was going wrong in places was being coordinated and governments were being manipulated.

......and since Pritchard etc in Haven knew that it wasn't Haven doing this (neither the tech nor the operation in Talbott....Pritchard....having been confronted by Harrington (on orders from Elizabeth) to NEGOTIATE A REASONABLE PEACE RATHER THAT CRUSH HAVEN LIKE A BUG.....decided that there was a bigger problem that needed solving and the solution was end the war and cooperate with Manticore.

Brigade XO wrote:IN THE PROCESS THE ALIGNMENTE JUMPED THE GUN by advancing Oyster Bay, Houdini, gettind in direct conflict with Manticore through it's manipulations in Talbott.... and in doing the one thing they were never intending to do- come out into knowlege as the pupetmaster state and give people the information that a lot of what was going wrong in places was being coordinated and governments were being manipulated.

......and since Pritchard etc in Haven knew that it wasn't Haven doing this (neither the tech nor the operation in Talbott....Pritchard....having been confronted by Harrington (on orders from Elizabeth) to NEGOTIATE A REASONABLE PEACE RATHER THAT CRUSH HAVEN LIKE A BUG.....decided that there was a bigger problem that needed solving and the solution was end the war and cooperate with Manticore.

No one is disputing Oyster Bay and Houdini were advanced. The books say that, in the words and thinking of inner Onion members. There can be no doubt about the fact that the timeline had slipped their control by then, though I should point out that they didn't realise that it had for Oyster Bay. They called it an opportunity.

Oyster Bay was launched in late 1921, striking in early 1922. It was approved more or less at the same time as Anisimovna being sent to New Tuscany to get Space Station Giselle destroyed and cause the incident. This is where the mistake was compounded and the MAlign crossed the point of no-return.

But Crandall was already conducting Operation Winter Forage at this time in the Macintosh system nearby. She wasn't yet at Meyers. It's also around this time we hear about Filareta, though no details are given about where he is or how big his force is. Those must have begun moving much earlier.

So I have to conclude that the MAlign had concluded it was time to provoke the war between the League and Haven at around the same time that the Lynx Terminus was opened. The pieces were already moving. Houdini was still a few years out, but they felt that 4 or 5 years was plenty. So they saw this as an opportunity: take the Lynx Terminus away from Manticore to force them on a two-front conflict -- three if the Andermani could have been provoked into fighting instead of allying.

Is this sufficient to explain why they rushed in Talbott?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So I have to conclude that the MAlign had concluded it was time to provoke the war between the League and Haven at around the same time that the Lynx Terminus was opened. The pieces were already moving. Houdini was still a few years out, but they felt that 4 or 5 years was plenty. So they saw this as an opportunity: take the Lynx Terminus away from Manticore to force them on a two-front conflict -- three if the Andermani could have been provoked into fighting instead of allying.

Is this sufficient to explain why they rushed in Talbott?

I believe they also hoped to grab at least some of the Manticoran tech from surrendered / destroyed ships or incomplete forts if Monica did succeed in temporarily capturing the Lynx terminus. Having something to reverse engineer, or knowledgeable prisoners to interrogate, might give them a head start in catching up to the technology Manticore had already shown off.

The Alignment was certainly hoping to find new Manty tech if/when Monica took the Linx terminus but that was just one piece in their new plans.

In the discussion about leading up to Oyster Bay it was clearly brought into play way before they intended. You find the Alignment speaking about not having enough weapons and delivery systems - including that the Sharks were only intended as test beds and the real OB plan called for the Lenny Sets (with internal magazines and launchers for the Graser Torpedoes- and that they were planning on hitting at least Haven the same way and at the same time.

They didn't (apparently) also have enough Ghost recon ships to do the deep penetration system scouting and mapping. At this point my memory isn't clear on what else they were planning to hit (beyond Haven) with OB or any detail on how the fleet of LD's would be used post Oyster Bay to support -in the original plan- the RF in their gathering up and indoctrinating the systems joining the RA over time with the ideals and (nominal) morals for the eventual puppet systems being controled by the Alignment from their lofty and hidden throne.

I think OB was supposed to eventualy cripple Haven post the conquest of Manticore (and intigration of it into Haven's empire) as well as disrupt parts of the SL and pave the way for the SL/Haven war and the atrocities that would lead to the breaking up of the League.