SPOILERS TEiF Plot Twists

tlb wrote:When reading the earlier books, I was sure there were actual bombs put into the State Sec ships while they were in Malign shipyards, but now we find that there were computer suicide protocols installed instead. I cannot find the earlier text to check my memory. However this gives a satisfactory answer to what Shannon did to bring about her "Oops" moment.

Bombs could be noticed by the crew, it might not be as easy to retrofit them as one might thing. We knew there was a self-destruct trigger, we just didn't know what form it was. That it was reusing existing systems in a way they were not designed for makes far more sense in hindsight. Also, those weren't StateSec ships. Those were People's Navy ships, so the level of competence was far above that of the StateSec.

That the Peep Mars design had such a fatal flaw is not surprising, actually.

I can sort of understand why there were no spider drives used in Operation Alamo. The Malign does not want the Grand Alliance to gain any knowledge or experience of their use, because they will be vital to operations and the defense of Darius. Even though this leads to the thought that there is another hidden fortress world. Darius is better hidden because of the wormhole, so it cannot be as easily found by triangulation of astrographic information.

We can understand why they've kept their best secrets away from Galton, but that will create holes in the history. They're sure there's a new stealth drive system and it couldn't be just Hasta because, as also stated earlier in the book, there's a clear paper trail inside Technodyne of the development of the Hasta, after the war broke out and thus after Oyster Bay. Whatever was used in that attack couldn't have been used then.

So, no, the GA knows something is missing, or at least will once they sift through all the evidence. Unlike what the MAN planners must have wanted, the crews of the 60 superdreadnoughts and all the civilian population survived and NONE of them knows anything about the spider drive. It's not conceivable that such a thing could have been produced in that system and no one knowing anything about it.

Plus remember there were three slaver ships that didn't return, but did go through the Warner-Mannerheim wormhole? Of course, three ships a population don't make, so where did Darius get its workforce from?

Bruno Behrends wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Very much enjoyed the book. Good to see that the pace of events has picked up and the overall plot is significantly advanced. Even if it sometimes feels that Honor is being namechecked and dragged in because, 'Oh well it is the Honorverse, after all!"

[snip]

It makes sense to me to give Honor command of a newly - formed anti-alignment fleet mission. Who is better suited for it? So I didn't get that 'oh well, this is the Honorverse' - vibe that you did.

<snip>

Now from the Malign perspective sending off O'Hanrahan onto that mission into Honor's staff and expose her to Honor's values and way of thinking and give her first-hand access to the clues that will turn up is a very bad idea IMO. That's a high-risk gamble for the Malign that can so so easily go wrong. Now O'Hanrahan likely has the killer nanites as an insurance, but still. Also I can't see this storyline leading nowwhere. It has been so thoroughly set up. This will be another of those Malign plans that come back as a boomerang.

I was really thinking of the coverage of Honor on Grayson when I wrote that. Other than the brief intro to O'Hanrahan, which could have been covered in the fleet, I didn't think those bits contributed very much.

Hopefully the O'Hanrahan story isn't going nowhere, but I'm not sure if it's going to be survivable for her. Her 'Bodyguard' is there for a reason.

[quote="saber964"

Chuck isn't the only one to be tuckered in. RADM Lawrence Coarrieia was tucked in[/quote]

Kudos I missed that one

tlb wrote:When reading the earlier books, I was sure there were actual bombs put into the State Sec ships while they were in Malign shipyards, but now we find that there were computer suicide protocols installed instead. I cannot find the earlier text to check my memory. However this gives a satisfactory answer to what Shannon did to bring about her "Oops" moment.

I can sort of understand why there were no spider drives used in Operation Alamo. The Malign does not want the Grand Alliance to gain any knowledge or experience of their use, because they will be vital to operations and the defense of Darius. Even though this leads to the thought that there is another hidden fortress world. Darius is better hidden because of the wormhole, so it cannot be as easily found by triangulation of astrographic information.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Bombs could be noticed by the crew, it might not be as easy to retrofit them as one might thing. We knew there was a self-destruct trigger, we just didn't know what form it was. That it was reusing existing systems in a way they were not designed for makes far more sense in hindsight. Also, those weren't StateSec ships. Those were People's Navy ships, so the level of competence was far above that of the StateSec.

That the Peep Mars design had such a fatal flaw is not surprising, actually.

We can understand why they've kept their best secrets away from Galton, but that will create holes in the history. They're sure there's a new stealth drive system and it couldn't be just Hasta because, as also stated earlier in the book, there's a clear paper trail inside Technodyne of the development of the Hasta, after the war broke out and thus after Oyster Bay. Whatever was used in that attack couldn't have been used then.

So, no, the GA knows something is missing, or at least will once they sift through all the evidence. Unlike what the MAN planners must have wanted, the crews of the 60 superdreadnoughts and all the civilian population survived and NONE of them knows anything about the spider drive. It's not conceivable that such a thing could have been produced in that system and no one knowing anything about it.

Plus remember there were three slaver ships that didn't return, but did go through the Warner-Mannerheim wormhole? Of course, three ships a population don't make, so where did Darius get its workforce from?

Whether StateSec or regular Navy (I find it highly unlikely that the leadership is not StateSec, whatever the source of the ship), it would be possible to hide an actual bomb within the armor or an extra thick wall in such a way that normal activity, including maintenance, would not find it. What I am really questioning here is what were the words used in the earlier book to described the destructive device meant to cause the Torch attack force to disappear. My memory is that it was physical and this is a retcon; but still explains what Shannon did.

I agree that the lack of any spider drive information is a hole that will cause questions about the possible existence of another fortress world. I am just saying that I can sort of see why the Darius command would do it that way. Darius will be much harder to find than Galton, because of the wormhole, and needs protection even more since there is no further fallback position. Anyway, if there weren't questions, then there would be no need for another book until Darius was ready to act.

Darius got the bulk of its population the same way that Galton did: out of the bio-tanks that could mass produce children. The slave labor might do the initial construction, but I expect they were eliminated when the tanks started producing; since you do not want the new workforce to be contaminated with slave contact. Instead they would be reared by loving foster parents that were full citizens, the same as everyone with whom the workforce would meet.

Randomiser wrote:Hopefully the O'Hanrahan story isn't going nowhere, but I'm not sure if it's going to be survivable for her. Her 'Bodyguard' is there for a reason.

I thought about that too, but Michael Anderle had nearly as much contact with treecats as Audrey herself did. And he passed their bar.

So, the onion leadership and "Phoebe" might have wanted him there to control Audrey, but I think that'll backfire too. I'm pretty sure he violated orders by disclosing to Audrey that it was a plot, even if she clearly had already figured it out. My prediction is that he'll refuse to act on a termination order.

tlb wrote:Darius got the bulk of its population the same way that Galton did: out of the bio-tanks that could mass produce children. The slave labor might do the initial construction, but I expect they were eliminated when the tanks started producing; since you do not want the new workforce to be contaminated with slave contact. Instead they would be reared by loving foster parents that were full citizens, the same as everyone with whom the workforce would meet.

Fair enough, but the question remains: where from? With a starter seed population of 15k slaves, how quickly can you set up infrastructure to develop the planet? And to do so in less than 200 T-years.

Which begs two more questions on population: just what are the Darius and Galton's population today? The book talks about 300 million people in space colonies in Galton, but we know of billions on the surface of Darius. That seems unlikely, given which one was started first and had the most influx. We're told few people live on Tschermak due to the high gravity, so is ~300 million the entire population of Galton?

The other question: what's the population of Mannerheim? We're told that there were about 50k people on Mannerheim during the Association era, when the slave transports shipped through the system. The Republic wasn't founded until later. Mind you, this is a system that even before the RF had an "oversize Navy," which I take to mean at least one SD squadron. Manticore built its three first SDs in the 1750s when the population must've been under a billion, but it also had a much bigger traffic through its junction than Mannerheim.

Hi guys, Im new in this parts. Just finished the book and even though i really liked it, i feel that plotwise, it ended at the same spot it began. McBryde is in Darius and ready to betray the Malignment. Zilwicky, Cachat, Firebrand an the Ghost hunters will investigate that recently conquered Alignment planet and find clues about the Alignment bolthole. Honor is retired after a battle were a bunch of other secondary characters from different navies followed her, but she will return to deal with the Alignment once they are found. Seriously, the only thing that advanced were the secondary plots, they were really good though.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:Darius got the bulk of its population the same way that Galton did: out of the bio-tanks that could mass produce children. The slave labor might do the initial construction, but I expect they were eliminated when the tanks started producing; since you do not want the new workforce to be contaminated with slave contact. Instead they would be reared by loving foster parents that were full citizens, the same as everyone with whom the workforce would meet.

Fair enough, but the question remains: where from? With a starter seed population of 15k slaves, how quickly can you set up infrastructure to develop the planet? And to do so in less than 200 T-years.

Which begs two more questions on population: just what are the Darius and Galton's population today? The book talks about 300 million people in space colonies in Galton, but we know of billions on the surface of Darius. That seems unlikely, given which one was started first and had the most influx. We're told few people live on Tschermak due to the high gravity, so is ~300 million the entire population of Galton?

The other question: what's the population of Mannerheim? We're told that there were about 50k people on Mannerheim during the Association era, when the slave transports shipped through the system. The Republic wasn't founded until later. Mind you, this is a system that even before the RF had an "oversize Navy," which I take to mean at least one SD squadron. Manticore built its three first SDs in the 1750s when the population must've been under a billion, but it also had a much bigger traffic through its junction than Mannerheim.

TIEF said Galton has about two billion people total(300m of that being on orbital habitats and such). Darius is up to about twice that. I would guess that they learned lessons from colonising Galton which they put to use in Darius. It's like starting Factorio over from scratch - you can progress through the early phase more quickly than you did previously.

As for Mannerheim, we don't have that information yet. Basically all we do know is they had a "sixth" BC squadron and a Task Force "four" led by a dreadnought flagship. This implies that they have up to four squadrons of wallers and at least fifty battlecruisers... so they're close to where Manticore was in the mid-1800s.

Manticore only had 14 wallers(plus 12 BBs) in 1840. By 1870 they had retired those BBs and had added 28(the Samothraces and Royal Wintons) for about five or six battle squadrons with a fresh wave of construction beginning to take them to 200-plus by 1900.

munroburton wrote:TIEF said Galton has about two billion people total(300m of that being on orbital habitats and such). Darius is up to about twice that. I would guess that they learned lessons from colonising Galton which they put to use in Darius. It's like starting Factorio over from scratch - you can progress through the early phase more quickly than you did previously.

Thanks.

But that's still a huge population growth in too short a time. I doubt they'll have done it solely with resources at hand. They must have shipped from elsewhere to get this far this quickly. So, I repeat, where from? And can Anton and Ruth discover this?

As for Mannerheim, we don't have that information yet. Basically all we do know is they had a "sixth" BC squadron and a Task Force "four" led by a dreadnought flagship. This implies that they have up to four squadrons of wallers and at least fifty battlecruisers... so they're close to where Manticore was in the mid-1800s.

Manticore only had 14 wallers(plus 12 BBs) in 1840. By 1870 they had retired those BBs and had added 28(the Samothraces and Royal Wintons) for about five or six battle squadrons with a fresh wave of construction beginning to take them to 200-plus by 1900.

Hmm... another inconsistency is the length of time the Mannerheim system must have been known. We're told that Warner-Mannerheim was the first wormhole ever discovered, which means we have a date for it: 1447 PD. Well, maybe it wasn't the first one transited, but 1447 was the first transit, so that's when they'd have come to the far side of the bridge. So even if Mannerheim was a few light-years away, like Lynx is from the Lynx terminus of the MWHJ, why wasn't it colonised much sooner? Why wait 300 T-years?

Or maybe the system is actually very inhospitable and Mannerheim is mostly a space-based colony. No one wanted to live there. So the MAlign decided to actually found the Mannerheim Republic because of the proximity to Felix, so it would some day own that system, and would also control the traffic of the Warner-Mannerheim bridge. Plausible?

Junk1992 wrote:Hi guys, Im new in this parts. Just finished the book and even though i really liked it, i feel that plotwise, it ended at the same spot it began. McBryde is in Darius and ready to betray the Malignment. Zilwicky, Cachat, Firebrand an the Ghost hunters will investigate that recently conquered Alignment planet and find clues about the Alignment bolthole. Honor is retired after a battle were a bunch of other secondary characters from different navies followed her, but she will return to deal with the Alignment once they are found. Seriously, the only thing that advanced were the secondary plots, they were really good though.

I think you summed up most of our responses perfectly. The story line needs to have a time jump due to Flint's plot lines forcing David to move the original outline up by 20-30 years, and this continues the story, slays the horrid beast, and sets up the pause for the next story when Honor's kids are old enough to take their own death rides. This book just ends the current plot lines and sets up the next.