ThinksMarkedly wrote:The strategy I take from what you're describing is to insert 2 or 3 of them into key systems, at least 6 months ahead of time of any operational need. Then they approach the inner system, without crossing into the hyper limit, and loiter somewhere within a light-hour (that's Saturn's orbit for us). Then they wait for a trigger command to be sent, probably as an innocuous broadcast. With their size, they may be able to remain on-station for years, which sounds like the minimum needed if it takes 3-6 months to insert.
BTW, 1 light hour is insufficient. They need 2.83 light-hours to accelerate from a relative standing start to 0.1c. To get to 0.2c, they must be past the equivalent of Pluto's orbit (5.6 light hours). I'd say that anything that far would need a directed transmission. To retain OpSec, they probably need to deploy a relay instead and therefore they must have a healthy supply of stealth relays.
munroburton wrote:Although they act like them in a lot of ways, LDs don't provide the second-strike deterrence capability of SSBNs and are first-strike weapons. The Alignment believes mutual destruction does not apply to them and have already pulled the trigger - a blind spot?
Why do you say that? If Darius' fall were imminent, the Alignment could send DBs to activate them.
But the cost here is lopsided. They may operate like an SSBN (stealth, no one knows where they are; have very long operational deployments; take a long time to arrive in position), but they cost like a supercarrier to build and operate.
One per system. I said two or three because Oyster Bay took place in two and a half star systems(Manticore A, B and Yeltsin's Star). It's not inconceivable that a single LD could perform both parts of the Manticore strikes. That might be pushing it, admittedly and playing safe would require at least two, with the third at Yeltsin.
Quite unlikely, assuming the same tactic of accelerating the torpedoes in-system and providing last-minute targetting corrections. One ships can't attack two targets light-hours apart in less time than it takes the FTL comms to warn the other target. It couldn't outrun relayed light-speed communication. And it wouldn't want to try that any way because the ship would need to follow a very narrow path between the two bodies, so locating it might not be too difficult. So it's one ship per hyperlimit, and a system may have several, like Jupiter has a 3 light-minute hyperlimit and Blackbird has one too.
BTW, if it's going to provide close-in targetting corrections, it's a near-suicide mission to go into the stellar hyperlimit. It might be an issue of crying over spilt milk or closing the barn after the horses have escaped, but you those whom it attacked would be out for revenge.
Of those 4,000 systems, how many command a real navy? Fewer than a hundred even have wallers and half of those bought theirs, meaning they don't have adequate support infrastructure to begin with. So many more are practically naked, like Nuncio, Monica or pre-Alliance Grayson. Some are naked when they shouldn't be, like Hypatia.
I'm just going with your suggestion of "two to four thousand planets-as-petri dishes" but I now guess you didn't mean attacking those with LDs, but the spoils of having won. So let's forget this high number.
The SLN is part of the problem; they have helpfully consolidated the military infrastructure of almost two thousand systems into a few dozen locations.
After hitting the first-rank systems in the first wave, they can assault other systems much more rapidly. Hyper in, roll these missile pods and torpedoes, make a single firing pass and hyper out. A squadron of battlecruisers in the way? No sweat.
I agree that there's probably a few dozen systems that are tier one enough and have very sensitive hyper detection arrays. Then there's probably a couple hundred with some navy and some hyper detection capability, enough that they can't be ignored. A squadron of battlecruisers may give an LD pause, because it's an eggshell if detected. So it must still insert a light-week or two away, meaning it's going to spend one month attacking each system.
With streak drives, they might even manage to outrace the dispatch boats leaving these attacked systems. It's all over before anyone figures out what's happening on an interstellar scale.
Via hyper, yes. They can't outrace a wormhole and they dare not transit wormholes where there's enemy traffic. And since the GA does know the secret to the streak drive, they need to plan assuming the rest of the Galaxy will be as fast in hyper as they will be.
Unless they have a secret wormhole network or manage to acquire one with force, they have to plan assuming they can't outrun the information. And all indications are that they have a single secret Junction, plus one useless wormhole (the Twins-Torch one), at least until they dispatch any forces from the Congo System that could intercept.
I'm not saying it would be easy to enforce their reign. They're going to miss a lot going on that they wouldn't approve of. But at that point, they have merely become a nastier version of OFS and that had centuries of unrivalled hegemony with light cruisers and destroyers.
The future Alignment could stay on top by not permitting any interstellar alliances or nations to form or exist other than their empire. Instead of parking ten thousand superdreadnoughts in whatever their version of the Core is, they actively mount expeditions to squash anyone with the temerity to build an orbital shipyard.
The only potential flies in the ointment are other people's Dariuses(or Boltholes) becoming capable of overwhelming the Alignment's more conventional forces.
Ok, now this is interesting, you're talking about the strategy for retaining power once achieved. I don't think this has been discussed before.
Clearly the Detweiler Plan implies placing the Alphas at the top and controlling everyone else. You're probably right that they would enforce a policy of no one being allowed to have a military in the first place. This may not be as easy as it seems: taking a page from cthia's book, someone could got away in a colony ship and build up a few hundred light-years away, then come back with overwhelming force.