SPOILERS: To End In Fire eARC discussion

Theemile wrote:
So? why wasn't each bastion planet a 100% backup for the other? if OB was the plan all along ( and a variant of it was), and just the timing was altered, why were the seeds of it not planted years earlier at the alt site, because the leadership KNEW OB was coming and KNEW Galton was the fallguy if something happened. The Spider drive, though newish, was not brand spanking new - 60 odd warships and a luxury yacht (and a munition) have been built with the drive, plenty of time to introduce it into the Galton knowledge base, even after the official R&D ended and it proved a capable drive system.

Or maybe it should be asked, if the maskirova was so important, why were the Spider munitions used early? If every other item of the attacks could be plausibly explained away or else be part of the charade as part of the Galton production - why allow the one irrefutable tripwire to be used?

The Detweiler plan has been followed for 200 years, it seems a odd place for it to start breaking down.

I tend to agree. If the maskirova was so important why risk it by launching OB with weapons that could point out flaws in it?

The spider ships were a bit less of a risk, as it was far more likely that they'd be able to get in and out without ever getting picked up and so leave the possibility of freighter deployed weapons open. (And in fact as far as we know, no trace of a ship under spider drive was picked up).

OTOH, to be fair, the hole in the deception would have been far less glaring without the successful defection of Simões; who was able to at least put a name to the drive and alert Manticore to the existence of this new and super stealthy system (even if he likely wasn't able to provide any technical details of exactly how it worked). And that defection couldn't have been envisioned at the time the planning for OB was carried out.


And while the lack of Spiders at Galton may be the most obvious hole in the Alamo plan the fact that the GA got their hands on copies of most of the records of those transiting the Mesan stations as part of Houdini would likely be enough on its own to strongly hint that Galton wasn't the only significant base the MAlign had. There should be a statistically significant number of folks they see on those transit recordings that never appeared at Galton; enough to make simple misadventure implausible.
So, from a story perspective, they'd probably still be searching for other bases even if the Spider discrepancy hadn't been introduced between Oyster Bay and Galton.

Jonathan_S wrote:

And while the lack of Spiders at Galton may be the most obvious hole in the Alamo plan the fact that the GA got their hands on copies of most of the records of those transiting the Mesan stations as part of Houdini would likely be enough on its own to strongly hint that Galton wasn't the only significant base the MAlign had. There should be a statistically significant number of folks they see on those transit recordings that never appeared at Galton; enough to make simple misadventure implausible.
So, from a story perspective, they'd probably still be searching for other bases even if the Spider discrepancy hadn't been introduced between Oyster Bay and Galton.

Even that has a flaw though - such a group could have been separated from greater Galton society and could have been on the major stations and killed during the assault, without a trace of their presence ever being found. Though rare from a major connected industrial core world viewpoint, it's not like ships never came and went from Galton. Whether or not the leadership committed to the sham and duplicated records of the Houdini arrivals along with proper ship timing (it would not have been too hard) is another story.

Theemile wrote:So? why wasn't each bastion planet a 100% backup for the other? if OB was the plan all along ( and a variant of it was), and just the timing was altered, why were the seeds of it not planted years earlier at the alt site, because the leadership KNEW OB was coming and KNEW Galton was the fallguy if something happened. The Spider drive, though newish, was not brand spanking new - 60 odd warships and a luxury yacht (and a munition) have been built with the drive, plenty of time to introduce it into the Galton knowledge base, even after the official R&D ended and it proved a capable drive system.

That's a very good point. OB wasn't a spur-of-the-moment operation. It was launched early and with the wrong ships, but attacking the shipyards of the Haven Sector using spider-drive ships had been the plan all along, or at least for a good number of years.

I don't think the SLN would look a gift horse in the mouth and would simply ignore the inconvenient facts that a third party with unknown capabilities paved the way for their conquest. Haven would have investigated if Pritchart had decided to take down Manticore instead of offering an alliance.

It is quite probable that if Haven had come back at Manticore after the Oyster Bay strike, that the SLN would have been ordered to "liberate" Manticore and punish Haven. Of course that Liberation would have been then overseen and managed by OFS and a massive crowd of bureaucrats and SLN SD's hanging all over the system to keep remnants of the RMN from trying to disrupt the liberation and reinstitution home rule under whomever survived fo the monarchy.

Remember that in this time frame the Mandarins are in full blood about all the problems with those upstart Manties destroying or capturing whole task forces and fleets. And you have Lacoon II engaged so trade is cut to a staggering crawl.

That has the potential for the SLN (and NOT by the Junction) to try someting like Raging Justice to free the MBS from Haven and -perhaps- at the same time send a large fleet to Haven. But you have to think about what the outcomes are potentially to be.
1) Haven is still going to take a new round of massive losses going in agains the reformulated Home Fleet and Manticore's losses will also skyrocket. So the capasity of both RHN and RMN will have been severely damaged
2) if SLN also goes after Haven, there is another bloodbath in the making as what will still be available (and what is called in from less important systems to bolster the RHN attack fleet) is still going to do a really good job of savaging the SLN fleet sent to Haven.
3) Whatever RMN installations/devences that survived at Manticore might be able to be pressed into service against the SLN in support of the (one would expect) reenforced victories RHN fleet at Manticore. Whatever show up from the SLN -unlikely to have the resupply of new upgrade Cataprhacts- is going to have a problem with the RNH ships.

Why.....because to this point the SLN and certainly the Mandarins have no actual handle on what either RMN or RHN navy are capable of as a) they haven't believed what their own people who were returned (carriers of the various surrender news of engagements with RMN) from the defeats and nobody in the SLN has apparently seen anything about the Haven capabilities. So SLN swans in in a gigantic mob and gets the crap shot out of it.

About the only winner here would be the Alignment. They get both Haven and Manticore either significantly pruned back of one (Manticore) taken over by Haven and massive losses are inflicted on the invincible SNL. The effect of the losses inflicted on SLN will not sit well with either it's citizens, most of it's leadership etc. But there will also be a breaking of that facade of strength & invincible perception, an the effect and reaction from others who want to start taking control if not actual pieces of the League will be difficult to blunt. Thiswould be the start of the fracturing of the League. Perhaps not so much with that is remaining of Haven's might, but there will be a signifcant number or RMN ships (and levels of supplies) which could resist attempts to force though to San Martin and certainly out in Silesia where the IAE might be willing to make an agreement to get all that next level tech and provide refuge for SEM citizens.
But the Alignment does get chaos and the RF can start it's growth using the faltering SL as a reason for other systems to bond together.

And this might be when the planning for the LDs to go out and have invisible starships mall over systems and stick the blame on variouis expatriate RHN or RMN groups or internal factions of the SL (like OFS Governors with plans for kingdoms) to take the blame and make things worse.

Ah the possibilities.

Been a few years since I posted. Didn't read the eARC, waited for the "real" release. But yeah, Galton was a pretty severe retcon. Now apparently, the "clones" on Darius aren't "slaves" anymore? I was sure they were and went back and checked. Yup, it's there in MoH. I enjoyed the book, but wasn't his vest. Emphasis added below (if I did this right). Sorry if someone already posted this.


By now, the Darius System’s total population was in the very near vicinity of 3.9 billion, of whom just under two billion were representatives of one of the alpha, beta, or gamma genomes the Alignment had worked to improve for so long. The remainder of the system population were genetic slaves, but the conditions of their slavery were very unlike those which obtained elsewhere. For one thing, they were treated far better, without the often savage discipline slaves often received elsewhere. In fact, the Darius System was one of the very few places where the Mesan Constitution’s official legal protections theoretically intended to protect slaves from gross mistreatment were actually enforced. For another, they had a much higher standard of living. And for yet another, they formed the backbone of a highly trained, highly skilled labor force which had earned the respect of its supervisors.

Perseus wrote:

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:I have not read the eARC, I have read the 1st half of the Webscription. When Galton was introduced in the March 1923 PD chapter, it was stated it will be, in case of emergency, sacrificed to hide Darius. The problem is that the version of Oyster Bay that Galton supposedly mounted is obviously inconsistent with Manticore knowledge of it, see chapter 30 in _Mission of Honor_. The Galton plan should have had highly stealthed drones with grasers instead of the MDMs with graser heads that were in it. Delivering the pods by freighters would work, but they had to leave hyperspace outside of the reach of Manticore sensor net. Which means that the freighters had to accelerate up to the 20% light speed (still outside the sensor net) and then go ballistic for months.

So either the Detweilers bungled again or there is an authorial continuity error (I have noticed 3 different people being in two different places simultaneously in the last 3 novels)

I was thinking something similar, but with the spider drive, which the GA knows about (and is probably researching). If I were the GA, one of the first things I would do would be to grab as much R&D data as possible, so they'll notice the lack of spider drive pretty quick.