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Pearls of Weber

A collection of posts by David Weber containing background information for his stories, collected and generously made available Joe Buckley.

How do the Sollies regard the Havenite War?

So far, Chris Maurer is closer to correct in this regard. The Solarian League is a Long Way from the combat front. They regard the Star Kingdom and the PRH as more than minor powers but less than great powers--somewhat as the present day US might regard France (sorry to any French fans). France has nuclear weapons, first rate military equipment, a modern industrial infrastructure, and a long and (usually distinguished military history. Compared to the US, however, its population, GNP, war machine, etc., are definitely second-rank and, in some areas, are actually surpassed by theoretically Third World powers. (Like in the number of tanks--note I said "numbers," not "quality"--that Iraq managed to assemble before Desert Storm.) In addition, the combat area is an enormous distance from any critical Solarian territorial interest. Again, Chris is close to the mark when he argues that a straight-line hyper-voyage from the SK to Solly territory would take on the order of 6+ months. For the PRH, it would be even longer. The sheer distance involved is enough that only those with a very specific reason to be interested in what's happening at the other end of the voyage are paying a great deal of attention. As a third point to consider, the information the Sollies have is less than complete. (I believe someone else commented on this, but I can't find the specific post in the sheer mass of them which spilled out of my system. Sorry!) Exact losses, cause of losses, tactics, etc., are classified by both the Manties and the Peeps. The Peeps are sharing information with some Solarians in return for technology transfers, but they are not sharing complete information with those people. Particularly, they are not sharing information which would make them look any worse than they already look.