ThinksMarkedly wrote:penny wrote:The MAlign does want to close the tech gap. Destroying all of Bolthole's infrastructure will handily accomplish that task by removing the ability of the enemy to manufacture those "superior weapons," somewhat leveling the playing field. Sending in a landing party to engage enemy forces section by section is too time consuming. And dangerous. Given time and opportunity, the enemy could surreptitiously launch a stealthy drone carrying scans and images of the LD. And the MAlign would not want to risk losing the opportunity to destroy the space station. Of course, if opportunity to secure a space station presents itself. Then sure. I just don't see that policy being part of the main objective. Rather than a secondary objective.
Aside from the other 10 yards that can also produce the same, sure. As of 1925, Bolthole may be the centre of new R&D, but it's not the centre of production. I don't think it corresponds to even 40% of the total GA output.
Remember how the IAN ships disappeared from Theisman's and NavInt's radar for a year during the war? They weren't being refitted with Keyhole II in any of the yards that Haven knew about, so there's at least one more secret yard somewhere.
Plus all the known ones. There's a major one in Nouveau Paris, one over Manticore, one in New Berlin, one in the Yieltsin system, plus subsidiary ones in the Sigma Draconis system, Grendelsbane, I'm guessing two more in the Republic.
So Bolthole is important and may be even irreplaceable, but it's not critical. The MAlign would need to attack all of the above to significantly curtail the GA's war production capability.BTW, the MA could have come up with specialized methods of securing orbitals by developing gases that act on compulsion. Etc. Etc.
Of orbitals? Against airtight space stations?
The gas would disperse before settling in any significant quantities over anything. Maybe they could rain down on the planet and still do something to the local populace, but I think the HV technology does not reach that far. Likewise, I don't think the nanites in the HV are capable enough to penetrate airtight seals.
Of course, destroying all of the known bases would be priority one of the LDs maiden voyage. But without the location of Bolthole, such an operation would not be fatal. The notion draws on me pointing out that the difference between submarines of WWII and the LD analog in the HV is that the LDs have the firepower to completely decimate entire bases. Eliminating all of the known bases and production facilities would prevent the GA from prosecuting the war.
The gases would be deployed while troops are aboard the space station. Armor piercing flash / gas grenades?