Attacking Darius:

munroburton wrote:Yes, but...

Mission of Honor wrote:SNIP... Darius, all the effort, all the generations of labor, the fact remained that its space stations and shipyards were significantly less capable than Manticore's SNIP... Their labor force was extraordinarily good at following orders, extremely well trained, and highly motivated,

Bolded is what I have ALWAYS had a gargantuan problem with. What could possibly motivate them? They have ZERO reason to build. They know virtually nothing about any other star system and even if they were indoctrinated, there is no interaction with any other star system. Unless... , the MALIGN purposefully creates entirely fabricated "news", battles, deaths, etc from outside their star system for why they need to build these giant ship yards.

Of course RFC has also said that the MALIGN living there are not segregated from the slaves, so real information about the outside will filter through, unless we also must postulate that the MALIGN living in Darius know nothing either

Relax wrote:Bolded is what I have ALWAYS had a gargantuan problem with. What could possibly motivate them? They have ZERO reason to build. They know virtually nothing about any other star system and even if they were indoctrinated, there is no interaction with any other star system. Unless... , the MALIGN purposefully creates entirely fabricated "news", battles, deaths, etc from outside their star system for why they need to build these giant ship yards.

Of course RFC has also said that the MALIGN living there are not segregated from the slaves, so real information about the outside will filter through, unless we also must postulate that the MALIGN living in Darius know nothing either

The paragraph immediately preceding the two I quoted from MoH says that there has been a lot of lying to Darius' population(star lines included). Three or four generations of workers all know they've been building the infrastructure to support a massive navy as well as build that navy, but they think it's for some defensive purpose.

Who or what they were supposed to be defending against isn't clarified. As you suggest, they might have fabricated an outside universe where, instead of passing the Eridani Edict, other humans are busy carrying out the Dark Forest theory.

munroburton wrote:

Relax wrote:Bolded is what I have ALWAYS had a gargantuan problem with. What could possibly motivate them? They have ZERO reason to build. They know virtually nothing about any other star system and even if they were indoctrinated, there is no interaction with any other star system. Unless... , the MALIGN purposefully creates entirely fabricated "news", battles, deaths, etc from outside their star system for why they need to build these giant ship yards.

Of course RFC has also said that the MALIGN living there are not segregated from the slaves, so real information about the outside will filter through, unless we also must postulate that the MALIGN living in Darius know nothing either

The paragraph immediately preceding the two I quoted from MoH says that there has been a lot of lying to Darius' population(star lines included). Three or four generations of workers all know they've been building the infrastructure to support a massive navy as well as build that navy, but they think it's for some defensive purpose.

Who or what they were supposed to be defending against isn't clarified. As you suggest, they might have fabricated an outside universe where, instead of passing the Eridani Edict, other humans are busy carrying out the Dark Forest theory.

It is a given that they are highly motivated. Gung-ho is the impression I got. I do recall they were fed some political piece about the galaxy being out to get them. Dunno where that came from, but again, I remember it as a given. This brings me to a concern of my own. If everyone is allowed to socialize, how is all of the news emanating out of the influx of people from Houdini going to rock the boat? Will everyone from Houdini be debriefed and "neutered?"*

Anyway, that highly motivated gung-ho nature is one of the things I was trying to sink my teeth in as far as build times. The Alignment literally works their slaves to the bone. Seriously, until dead, and then they discard them like yesterday's news. And, iinm, they have very short lifespans without prolong. Hmm, that is probably one reason they can't match Manticore's build rates because they don't live long enough to accrue that kind of experience.

Late edit: I also recall it being stated that their slaves are happy. That is what I question. Short lifespans, long work days. Happiness isn't something you'd expect from a populace that seems to be downtrodden and exploited. They seem to be worst off than the slaves of Egypt. At any rate, they are a happy gung-ho workforce that simply love their lives.

How are the newcomers fresh off of the boat going to digest the living conditions of their new people? And will they be expected to live the same kind of life? Will jealousy overcome the slaves if the newcomers lives are much better?

*Fixed so they can't talk should probably be called Philomelated or Philomelayed. :shrug:

We don't fully know what hand how the people of Darius know, how they were trained and how much the non-starling portions of the populations are involved in operating starships.

Without prolong -for the "non-slaves" there is a cap on how much experience and expertise they can gather even with generational improvements in education and available- to them- knowledge. There is also the question of how is the long lifespans of the Star Lines explained or rationalized to the non-slaves who don't have any access or possibly knowledge of Prolong?

Some of this discussion and part of the quotes from the books seem to imply that you are looking at a cast system in which the leadership is very long lived and the "workers" are not though they may live 60 or more years-and age accordingly but since this is normal in terms of Darius they don't question it. The same conversations are talking about initiative or rather the lack of it in the non-Star Lines at Darius as a limiting factor on production. That is equivalent to saying that they are both conditioned and probably tweaked genetically to lack that kind of initiative to fine a better or more effective way to do something so they just follow orders.
How will the recent and relatively large influx of Houdini transfers clash with the conditioning and education of the non- Star Line? Is it possible that the Houdini people are truly effectively segregated from the rest of the populations such that there is no interaction? If you believe that then they are locked into segregated habitats in space or very isolated facilities (even the size of current Earth time New York or Hong Kong) from which their designer and other contributions are carefully disbursed by 3rd parties to the non-slave segments of the Darius population that will be involved with them.

Given what we have seen being done on Mesa, there has to be some level of impeded spies/informers in the non-slave populations to identify problems so that Things Can Be Done. Not possible that the Star Lines are not retaining very tight observation on their worker cast individuals.

Brigade XO wrote:We don't fully know what hand how the people of Darius know, how they were trained and how much the non-starling portions of the populations are involved in operating starships.

Without prolong -for the "non-slaves" there is a cap on how much experience and expertise they can gather even with generational improvements in education and available- to them- knowledge. There is also the question of how is the long lifespans of the Star Lines explained or rationalized to the non-slaves who don't have any access or possibly knowledge of Prolong?

Some of this discussion and part of the quotes from the books seem to imply that you are looking at a cast system in which the leadership is very long lived and the "workers" are not though they may live 60 or more years-and age accordingly but since this is normal in terms of Darius they don't question it. The same conversations are talking about initiative or rather the lack of it in the non-Star Lines at Darius as a limiting factor on production. That is equivalent to saying that they are both conditioned and probably tweaked genetically to lack that kind of initiative to fine a better or more effective way to do something so they just follow orders.
How will the recent and relatively large influx of Houdini transfers clash with the conditioning and education of the non- Star Line? Is it possible that the Houdini people are truly effectively segregated from the rest of the populations such that there is no interaction? If you believe that then they are locked into segregated habitats in space or very isolated facilities (even the size of current Earth time New York or Hong Kong) from which their designer and other contributions are carefully disbursed by 3rd parties to the non-slave segments of the Darius population that will be involved with them.

Given what we have seen being done on Mesa, there has to be some level of impeded spies/informers in the non-slave populations to identify problems so that Things Can Be Done. Not possible that the Star Lines are not retaining very tight observation on their worker cast individuals.

You have broached a lot of the questions that I have, the same questions undoubtedly that everyone has. No matter how you slice it, the Houdini refugees appear to be a potential problem area for the MA. But, Houdini has been planned for so long that it is inconceivable that the MA are simply winging it without having had a contingency plan in place. Of course they did. We just don't know what that is. And I would sure like to know. But Houdini was rushed and happened way too early, so who knows how the wind blows. One good thing about the whole rotten mess is it is highly likely that the author is going to fill in an awful lot of missing data about the MA in the next mainline novel. And possible in the cluster of celery we're currently awaiting to chow down on next month. Not only is the author keeping a lot of classified info about the MA from the GA. He's holding out on us as well! The MA is as mysterious as they come.

At one point I wondered if the author would begin to use the human element to get us to empathize with the MA, as he eventually did with the Peeps, making it difficult for us to continue to completely abhor them. Many of us fell in love with the Peeps. roseandheather! Ok, admittedly I got the hots for Shannon myself. And Theisman is a real cool dude. And Eloise got balls of steel. But I simply can't see how the author can get this MA hatin' reader to feel anything for the MA as a whole. Although, it would be refreshing if he showed a bit more humanity lurking in at least several of them. More than the little that he has. I still maintain that there will be a major defection in the ranks of the Onion. It is all simply a marked deck of dirty shaky cards.

But you're right XO, there is so much we don't know about the MA that as far as speculating, we can't even take a shot in the dark (like the GA will be doing when the Spiders hit the fan). The politics of the entire MA is missing. Reading about that alone should make for an interesting fireplace read replete with paper cuts.

One huge question is which line will produce the officers aboard the ships. And if they are Alphas then certainly the crew aren't. So what line will they come from. It is difficult for me to believe that anyone from the Inner Onion will be found on any warship.

BTW, one possibility of diffusing the problem with the Houdini refugees could be to relocate them amongst the RF planets under new aliases and cosmetic surgery. We know they won't talk.

cthia wrote:
BTW, one possibility of diffusing the problem with the Houdini refugees could be to relocate them amongst the RF planets under new aliases and cosmetic surgery. We know they won't talk.

Ah, that might be a really really really bad idea for the Alignment.
1st of all, the Houdini people know about Darius. Not where it is but that there is at least one wormhole transit to get there if they were relatively close and if not close then there would be two or more plus X days in transit. Getting that information into the hand of RMS OMI would be offering a taste of a snake to a mongoose.
2nd, the Houdini people are all considered vital to the Alignment in one way or another. From Firebrands's handler after he was "recruited" into the inciting of false Manticore supported uprisings to Zack McBride who knows an awful lot about design and development of one of the Alignments secrete projects. Putting either of these onto an RF planet is practically an invitation for one to be discovered or decide they want out and make a successful bolt.
3rd, what made them so valuable that their deaths had to be faked with (well this is the Alignment we are taking about) so many structured and anticipated collateral deaths makes them way to valuable to risk moving them out of the deep security of some enclave on Darius or moved back into the field as a senior supervisor in the Dirty Tricks operations.

Keeping them somewhere (and more or less isolated from the non-Star Line population) on or above Darius keeps all that knowledge and secretes at least contained in the one place the Alignment feels relatively secure. Even of the Alignment decides to build new products and tech at a different stellar location, it would be shipping the information and workers, not the R&D people. Can you see Zack McBride's reaction to being shipped off to "site B" with several GALLS to be his minders? Not a happy camper after the last experience.

For example, one hypothesis is that the Cataphract plus later generations and then the Hasta weapons system were developed by the Alignment R&D and feed through Technodyne. What would be missing at Ylden would be the real development information and everything would have been scrubbed/rewritten before leaving MA hands. And then there was that s>>>load of Cataphracts delivered to Filerta before Operation Raging Justice. Production of that massive shipment wasn't at Mesa or anywhere Filerta could figure out given the timing. And we have NO information on the ships that delivered them to the Justice fleet. Were they SLN colliers or were they nondescript chartered freighters using Yldin IFF codes and crews who literally NO physical contact with the crews on the Justice fleet since they more or less dumped the shipping containers out to be transferred and everything was on by screen using freighter crew/officers who may have been using software to desguise who they were?

The RF has been sprung on the SL as what is going to start to look very interesting as a well structured "pick up" organization for metal protection of systems outside and wishing to leave the League. That has got to also tickle the attention of the GA's intelligence and Foreign Service. Who are these people and what happened to make this group pop onto the scene in such a well developed form.
The questions never end.

Brigade XO wrote: 1st of all, the Houdini people know about Darius. Not where it is but that there is at least one wormhole transit to get there if they were relatively close and if not close then there would be two or more plus X days in transit. Getting that information into the hand of RMS OMI would be offering a taste of a snake to a mongoose.

Why would they know it's a wormhole transit away? Unless they were on the bridge when they transited, passengers shouldn't be able to know any more than what the crew wanted them to know. There are no portholes on ships, liners or warships alike. Do people feel any physiological effect of transits? And even if they do, would they be able to tell a wormhole transit apart from a hyperspace band change?

Even the passengers can tell that the ship transited a wormhole, why would the ship necessarily take the Darius wormhole? The Darius system is somewhere close in the Galaxy, so it is reachable via regular hyperspace. We don't know what route the liner took. They might not have gone through the Felix Junction at all. Mannerheim is close to Felix, so if Mannerheim were the destination, then yes, they'd take the wormhole. But the trip to the other 11 members may not be fastest via that wormhole.

Plus, they may go through other wormholes. Once on a legitimate courier or liner, it wouldn't be a problem to transit a wormhole that isn't held by the enemy.

For example, one hypothesis is that the Cataphract plus later generations and then the Hasta weapons system were developed by the Alignment R&D and feed through Technodyne. What would be missing at Ylden would be the real development information and everything would have been scrubbed/rewritten before leaving MA hands. And then there was that s>>>load of Cataphracts delivered to Filerta before Operation Raging Justice. Production of that massive shipment wasn't at Mesa or anywhere Filerta could figure out given the timing. And we have NO information on the ships that delivered them to the Justice fleet. Were they SLN colliers or were they nondescript chartered freighters using Yldin IFF codes and crews who literally NO physical contact with the crews on the Justice fleet since they more or less dumped the shipping containers out to be transferred and everything was on by screen using freighter crew/officers who may have been using software to desguise who they were?

I thought Hasta was an entirely SLN + Technodyne development. There's no hint in the books that the design came from the Alignment.

Hasta popped out of nowhere, delivered to the SL. At least this is what it seemed when reading it. Sure, a special project somewhere but seems a bit outside the kind of thing that the SLN was generally doing.

Playing devil's advocate, it would be unlikely that the Alignment would take anybody directly to Darius via hyperspace even if it was conveniently located only a couple of hundred light years from Mesa. Ship transfers seem to be a key feature in the movements. Sure, drop into some system that ought to be secure or at least not regularly visited by anybody of concern but where Zack was got raided by Torch forces because it was a transfer point for genetic slavery and that led to the problems like loosing one of the ships and getting the Gaul shepherding Zack killed. At some point, there had to be a transfer between a ship that ONLY operated within "known space" to a ship that had at least a navigator that was going back to Darius and there would be very little trail for anyone else to follow. Just like the freighter that was set up to return the Beowulf manufacture equipment Beowulf but had to stop way out in the Dark to meet with a ship and take on the Silver Bullet equipment to deploy at Beowulf. It was a clandestine meeting. It's another freighter and there had better be no thought of asking questions, just take the transfer, no real communications exchange and follow your new set of orders.....yeah, take "this/these" and QUIETLY avoid sensors and ships as you run into orbit near Beowulf such that you dropped off this stuff and nothing showed on your books.
Are the Alignment going to give ANY of the slaver ship captains or crews any information about where the other ship came from. Not on your (or anybody else's) life. Covert activity. Do your job, get paid and wait for your next orders but follow what you are regularly scheduled to do. I don't know about you but my perspective is that most of the people who have been working in some fashion with or for companies out of Mesa in any way have a very clear impression that being thought to be a leak or have compromised an operation is going to be fatal. They are doing, at best, Iffy stuff and more likely something criminal which can get you killed in normal course of business crossing various systems legal systems but "those people" - you are never quite sure who you are actualy dealing with but they are clearly powerful and have a long reach-- will kill you quick if your lucky. Most of these lower level people are probably already on the hook for all sorts of hurt if their pasts become know to varioius systems and if they screw up or don't follow orders will vanish, and not in a good way.

Brigade XO wrote:(SNIP)

...

Just like the freighter that was set up to return the Beowulf manufacture equipment Beowulf but had to stop way out in the Dark to meet with a ship and take on the Silver Bullet equipment to deploy at Beowulf. It was a clandestine meeting.

(SNIP)

I believe that the Silver Bullets were delivered to Warner, where they were added to the cargo of the freighter carrying the Beowulf shipments. As to what they picked up at that extra stop, it could had been the bombs that took out the Beowulf orbital habitats.

Brigade XO wrote:Hasta popped out of nowhere, delivered to the SL. At least this is what it seemed when reading it. Sure, a special project somewhere but seems a bit outside the kind of thing that the SLN was generally doing.

That's not how it sounded like to me. To me, it sounded like genuine development from TIY and their Ganymede annex people. The indication of that to me was the fact that they wanted to show a prototype to the SLN brass, not a finished product with no paperwork like what came out of the Alignment was. It was also clearly not working well in that first test. And though it worked during Operation Fabius, it wasn't nearly good enough a game-changer: basically, with Hasta, the SLN managed to destroy one factory.

But it did sound like what the SLN and SL itself were capable of, given enough time and money, to apply to research.

Playing devil's advocate, it would be unlikely that the Alignment would take anybody directly to Darius via hyperspace even if it was conveniently located only a couple of hundred light years from Mesa. Ship transfers seem to be a key feature in the movements. Sure, drop into some system that ought to be secure or at least not regularly visited by anybody of concern but where Zack was got raided by Torch forces because it was a transfer point for genetic slavery and that led to the problems like loosing one of the ships and getting the Gaul shepherding Zack killed. At some point, there had to be a transfer between a ship that ONLY operated within "known space" to a ship that had at least a navigator that was going back to Darius and there would be very little trail for anyone else to follow. Just like the freighter that was set up to return the Beowulf manufacture equipment Beowulf but had to stop way out in the Dark to meet with a ship and take on the Silver Bullet equipment to deploy at Beowulf. It was a clandestine meeting. It's another freighter and there had better be no thought of asking questions, just take the transfer, no real communications exchange and follow your new set of orders.....yeah, take "this/these" and QUIETLY avoid sensors and ships as you run into orbit near Beowulf such that you dropped off this stuff and nothing showed on your books.
Are the Alignment going to give ANY of the slaver ship captains or crews any information about where the other ship came from. Not on your (or anybody else's) life. Covert activity. Do your job, get paid and wait for your next orders but follow what you are regularly scheduled to do. I don't know about you but my perspective is that most of the people who have been working in some fashion with or for companies out of Mesa in any way have a very clear impression that being thought to be a leak or have compromised an operation is going to be fatal. They are doing, at best, Iffy stuff and more likely something criminal which can get you killed in normal course of business crossing various systems legal systems but "those people" - you are never quite sure who you are actualy dealing with but they are clearly powerful and have a long reach-- will kill you quick if your lucky. Most of these lower level people are probably already on the hook for all sorts of hurt if their pasts become know to varioius systems and if they screw up or don't follow orders will vanish, and not in a good way.

I wasn't thinking of a direct trip from Mesa, except for the Detweilers. But that doesn't mean a dogleg trip must include a wormhole, much less that that wormhole be Felix.