Honorverse's mirrorverse (just for fun)

Commodore Oakius wrote:Citizen Admiral Harrington has consistantly crushed the RMN, navy of her unknown birth world. Kidnapped as a child, she was raised in a creche by the government. Thomas Theisman was her protege, now her nominal superiour as Citizen Sec. of War, and her lover.
Thriving on the challenge of overcoming the Mantie tech edge, her senior tac officer, Shannon Foraker, and her have become close, planning the revisions of the SD(P) of the Mantie version.
Ready to launch an attack on the Manticoran homeworlds and take the nexus, Honor embarks on a secret mission to Sphinx (via the Trevor's Star or Bassilk terminals, both under Havenite control, and showing no signs of falling)where she is adopted by a treecat plotting to unite the People under his rule, and now Honor will help him...

That would be a cool story to see as a dark version of the Honorverse. My new content is in bold.

The Alignment is a analogue P.E.T.A of the Honorverse, attacking anything that represents the enslavement of humanity by not allowing either Evolution or genetic manipulation to advance the species. They are also constantly working at one-upping other members by collecting "interesting" genetic modifications on themselves or or their vat-grown offspring and showing these modifications off at any opportunity.
Mixing animal, insect and fish genes with humans has become a status symbol with them to the point that the most notorious faction- the Detwilers - look like finned centipedes with florescent striping and often dine on raw chicken. They do have a few challenges, one being they need full time scientific staff with them to keep adjusting the truly odd mixture of gases and nutrients to stay alive and no actual geneticist will talk to them.

biochem wrote:This thread is absolute proof that we REALLY REALLY need a new a new book

haha - he got it right 8 years ago!!!!

Mirrorverse Tech Paradigm.

Bigger is not better. Advances in Wedge Technology and gravity manipulation in general have made Superdreadnoughts and any capital ship that isn't some kind of carrier obsolete.

No, the king of space combat is the lowly Space Fighter. Smaller even than the LAC, fighters use advanced Wedge and Sidewall technology that renders them immune to everything but their own primary weapon: the Gravity Lance. Said gravity lance is powerful enough to blow out even the most powerful wedges of the most powerful spacefort, meaning that the best defense against a grav lance is to not get hit at all. Minimum size and maximum maneuverability are now the primary sought after traits in a warship, hence the space fighter becoming the premier space combat platform in the mirror Honorverse.

What's more, advances in hyperdrive tech has reduced the hyperlimit to be barely above the atmosphere of most worlds. The hyperdrives themselves have shrunk enough that they can be mounted on fighters. As a result, space combat can really only happen at what amounts to knife fighting ranges, as any attempt at using long ranged weapons like grav lance tipped missiles will just result in the target evading by ducking into the next layer of hyperspace. Strategic defense involves intercepting enemy forces on the hyperlanes before they can enter the boundaries of a system and threaten civilian planets and stations, and strategic offense is trying to fight through such defenses or find means to bypass them without leaving one's own systems vulnerable.

Of course, fighters don't have much in the way of strategic endurance, hence they must be based on larger stations or carriers.

Still, despite the supremacy of the fighter, ships of cruiser class and smaller still find work to do. After all, not every mission a navy performs can be done cost effectively with a carrier and fighter complement. Carriers are too few and too expensive and fighters are too short legged. Hence cruisers and destroyers continue to patrol the space lanes keeping civilian shipping safe from pirates.

And in wartime, these lesser ships will often be found escorting carriers on the off chance the enemy locates them. While fighters are the king of space combat, cruisers and destroyers carry their own grav lances and aren't entirely ineffective against fighters.