Light bulb Captured Solly fleet

Weird Harold wrote:Where are you going to get the computers and information access required of a early 20th century PD civilization's educational system?

Off the shelves.

Where (and when) are you going to get the "books" to conduct book learning at 20th Century PD standards?

Off the shelves.

You can't seriously be thinking that such basic and trivial tech is in any way expensive or can only be produced at Manticore, do you? I mean, Rembrandt was running a nice little merchant navy long before the Lynx wormhole was opened, and Spindle and other systems were also not exactly backwaters (They were certainly more advanced than Grayson). With a bit of funding (and the funding levels required would probably at the "a few hundred thousand or a couple million Manticoran dollars" level), distributing knowledge to bring everyone up to Rembrandt standards should be easily possible.

The thing is, in order to get everyone up to speed, it's first necessary to train the teachers. You could do that by recruiting a couple POWs, shipping off an SD or two, and hoping that the few hundred people you can train effectively with the materials on board will be enough, or you can charter a passenger liner, ship those prospective trainers and teachers off to Rembrandt or Manticore for 6 months or a year, and have them do all the training there.

Just take a guess which solution sounds less complicated. Just a guess.

On Manticore, with Manticore's universal net access, that's true.

It is NOT true on Nuncio where only the president's palace has video capability for its communications suite.

It is NOT true on Kornati where communications are still carried on copper wires.

Hate to break this to you, but running a worldwide net is definitely possible over copper wire, and education is definitely not impacted by the availability of video communication.

In the TQ, that "bit of book learning" is a century or so more advanced than anything Nuncio had available as of Hexapuma's visit. It is also available as self-paced computer-assisted learning programs.

But if you prefer pen and paper in a poorly insulated warehouse over a shirt-sleeve environment in front of a computer terminal, be my guest.

You have quite a low opinion of what the native Talbotters can do, do you. Do you have any text evidence that would actually support these assertions of utter inadequacy?
Of course these systems aren't "up to Solarian standards", noone's disputing that, but neither are they stuck in the dark middle ages.

Even Nuncio, which you use as your goto "OMG everything's so terribly backwards here" example, has a couple of LACs, which means that they have a functioning space infrastructure in place (LACs being unable to land on a planet, and requiring servicing and maintenance), and enough of a space navy that they can train locals.

Why would the SEM offer "on-the-job training" for others, but deny it to the hardscrabble neobarb worlds of its own territory? Otherwise see the preceding paragraph.

Why wouldn't they, indeed. But why would they use solarian ships and personnel to do it, when those same ships and personnel can be repatriated as goodwill gestures to newly liberated worlds? When you can offer worlds all their people back and a BatRon of SDs on top?

Probably not. I'm not writing the Honorverse, but I might indulge in a bit of fan-fiction to flesh-out the idea.

Just be careful, there's a strict ban on fanfic in these forums. Speculation is fine, outright fiction is not.

How long would you estimate it would take to build a six-hundred bed hospital? Or even 200 bed extensions to three existing hospitals.

The medical department of a warship should be able to treat up to ten percent of the crew; A solarian SD has a crew of "over 6,000." That's a 600 bed hospital that you want to deny the depressed economies of planets like Nuncio or Dresden.

That's a 600 bed hospital that you haven't demonstrated is needed. Or in any way adequate to the needs of these worlds.

Look, I agree that the worlds in the TQ have a need for modern medicine and education. That's a no-brainer. Where I fundamentally disagree is that SLN SDs are the best, or even an adequate way to deliver these things to those worlds in a timely fashion.
You insist that these ships are available now, and can do good now, but that just isn't true. Between the POW screening, the necessities of stationing guarding forces, and the inevitable delays in setting up the logistics, "now" is quite a bit in the future. Meanwhile, the timeline tells us that the annexation of the TQ is complete by early 1921, with a year of peacetime between it and Oyster Bay. Crandalls' task force gets itself captured at around the same time, so by the time the ressources you want to use become available, there has already been almost a year of civilian effort spent on bringing up the TQ's economy.
In said year, schools and hospitals can be built, modern equipment shipped in, all without any sort of pressure imposed by the Oyster Bay recovery.

I would probably be more inclined to agree with your proposal if the timeline was tighter, if the battle of Spindle, Oyster Bay, and the second Battle of Manticore all happened just a few weeks after the TQ Constitution is signed, but that just isn't the case.

kzt wrote:"Treat" is not the same as "hospitalize". Putting a band-aid on is treatment. And I suspect that on that basis I can open a 600 patient "hospital" in a large tent in about 20 minutes.

A point. However, I was thinking in terms of physical beds during damage control/combat when "treat" means "save this life if you can."

kzt wrote:How many physicians do you really think there are on an SD? How many non-physician properly qualified medical staff? How many surgeons and operating rooms? How long do you think their supplies will last trying to treat thousands of people?

The only real reference where we see a significant portion of a warships is HMS Fearless in OBS. Fearless sported two doctors and six SBAs IIRC. I think that worked out to 2%-3% of her total crew.

"Supplies" can be replenished; The real value of an SDs "med bay" to an underdeveloped world is the diagnostic and/or repair hardware.

Weird Harold wrote:

wastedfly wrote:Address the real part of my post. Go ahead.

What "real part"

The German POW farm workers we

My bad. I made the mistake you would actually read and respond to my original and compare/contrast your "hypothesis" and the German POW's menial labor.

I am out of here.

Harold are you skimpers clone?

crewdude48 wrote:I will point out that your mantra of "here, now, free" is partially false. It is true for Spindle, but that is one of the more advanced worlds of the Quadrant. To all of the other systems the ships are "there," and will not be here "until" you can find a crew willing, able, and trusted to transport them, after they have been stocked up on perishables and bunkerage which "cost money."

I've been applying that mantra to the TQ as a unit. I know that it will cost some amount of money to move the ships -- although I would assert they probably don't need bunkerage or much beyond perishables -- if that. They weren't planning on refueling or restocking when they arrived, were they?

crewdude48 wrote: I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind, ...

Nope, don't mind. Rational questions will be a welcome change.

crewdude48 wrote:How much time will it take to remove offensive weaponry so no "accidents" happen? ...

Missiles can be offloaded and stored or recycled. They're not very good missiles, but Manticore's missile production lines have been interrupted. -- I wouldn't store them long because restoring missile production with Beowulf and Haven's assistance has been a priority since the Yawata Strike.

Point defense and counter missiles can also be removed without a shipyard.

Energy weapons are the problem. They can't be removed without a lot of time in a shipyard.

Since the ships can't be de-milled by removing the energy mounts, the best solution is to "spike the guns" and leave them in place. It should be possible to remove one or more critical components (on-mount computers? sights? power leads?) and render them harmless fairly quickly.

crewdude48 wrote:Once demilled, how many spacers do you need per ship to move it to the desired world?

I've been figuring the same number Adm Gold Peak left aboard when she had them abandon ship -- approx 1/6 or 1,000/SD. That's probably high but given the solarian designs, maybe not.

crewdude48 wrote:If the bulk are going to be paroled SLN spacers, how many RMN/RMMC personnel will you need to assign to command/guard them?

Depends on how paranoid the people in charge are? Eventually, every SLN sailor will have a local shadow called an "apprentice" which would reduce purely security manning to about 1:10 or 1:20.

crewdude48 wrote:How much are you paying the paroled spacers for their service, or are they going to be slave labor?

Basic (civilian) Spacer pay with appropriate pay scale for more responsible positions or needed skills. That's probably less than the equivalent number of certified teachers

crewdude48 wrote:When the ship is in transit, what are you going to escort it with in case something happens?

I would expect a convoy of all SLN ships destined for a given system to travel together. Depending on the makeup of the ferry crew an RMN or local escort may not be required. One SD, pre-demilling, with a crew over 60% RMN or local with enough extra RMN to man tactical and weapons mounts would be adequate "escort" for all but the most paranoid.

crewdude48 wrote:Is all of the above going to be less resource use than sending a RMN capitol ship? Consider that RMN ships have always had smaller crews than any other navy.

RMN capital ships have better things to do than play school-marm. A ferry crew of mixed RMN, Local Military/police, and paroled SLN shouldn't place very much demand on scarce RMN resources.

crewdude48 wrote:How are the less advanced planets going to keep the ship fueled once it gets there? Considering they had navies consisting of LAC's I don't think they have that much fueling capacity on hand.

I would expect that the SLN ships won't require much fuel just to maintain habitability and station keeping. The shouldn't need more than one Fusion Plant in operation for a harbor watch status. They definitely won't be using the full redundant power capacity when the drives and weapons are all shutdown and/or disabled.

crewdude48 wrote:Aside from a 1 month head start, why is this a better idea than sending learning machines from Manticore in one of the merchant ships that are sitting around? They probably have some older models sitting in store rooms all around the system.

Because Manticore is rebuilding from the Yawata Strike. Finding and shipping older model learning machines -- if they exist -- would divert time and money from rebuilding.

That "if they exist" is key; I know what keeping 6,000+ spacers trained and providing career advancement materials implies about an SDs teaching capacity. I don't know when the SEM will be able to provide the same capacity or how long it will take.

The autonomous government of the TQ possibly has the money and will to import solarian or havenite educational tech and knowledge, but again, I have no idea when or how much or where education ranks in priority with other issues.

The captured SLN ships represent a "bird in the hand" against "two that might be in some bush six months to two years down the road."

Weird Harold, why do you think Manticore lacks the capability to provide medical equipment or consumer electronics?
All that stuff is civilian equipment, which can be imported, and produced. The Yawata strike only destroyed the space stations, which held the yards and armament factories. Manticores civilian industry is ground side, where the vast majority of people live, and therefore want to work. Also Manticore still has a giant merchant fleet, control of the wormholes and money able to buy civilian equipment.

The E wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Where are you going to get the computers and information access required of a early 20th century PD civilization's educational system?

Off the shelves.

When where and for how much?

The E wrote:

Where (and when) are you going to get the "books" to conduct book learning at 20th Century PD standards?

Off the shelves.

When where and for how much?

The E wrote:You can't seriously be thinking that such basic and trivial tech is in any way expensive or can only be produced at Manticore, do you? I mean, Rembrandt was running a nice little merchant navy long before the Lynx wormhole was opened, and Spindle and other systems were also not exactly backwaters (They were certainly more advanced than Grayson).

You seem to be arguing that since Gutenberg invented a printing press, all he needed was time and paper to print the Encyclopedia Britannica.

It isn't the hardware, it is the knowledge base that makes the SLN ships valuable. The hardware is only valuable since I KNOW that the hardware can deliver the knowledge because the knowledge was formatted and programmed to be presented on that hardware.

Even Rembrandt valued a Solarian education. It doesn't hose a SLN naval base or a branch campus of Chicago University. It can probably absorb the knowledge fairly easily, but there is knowledge there that Rembrandt doesn't have -- if it did they'd be closer to Manticore than they are.

The E wrote:I would probably be more inclined to agree with your proposal if the timeline was tighter, ...

I'd be less inclined to push the idea if Manticore hadn't halved its GSP by Case Lacoon on top of the Yawata Strike.

The SEM needs educated manpower to feed Saganami Island and the RMNs technical schools. It needs educated manpower for the Talboter battalions it needs to send to Meyers and the rest of the Madras sector. It needs educated manpower to populate the rebuilding of Manticore and the expansion of TQ industry.

The SEM needs all that manpower now and not six months or two years from now. It isn't going to get them "now" but it might not take six months either -- not with self-paced computer learning available.

Weird Harold wrote:When where and for how much?

When: Sometime in March or April 1921.
Where: Manticore.
For how much: Who knows? But it can't be that expensive.

It isn't the hardware, it is the knowledge base that makes the SLN ships valuable. The hardware is only valuable since I KNOW that the hardware can deliver the knowledge because the knowledge was formatted and programmed to be presented on that hardware.

And that same hardware, that same knowledge, was available long before the solarian SDs were. By the time the SDs are available, months have passed since the signing of the TQ Constitution, are you seriously suggesting that nothing was done in that time to ship a bunch of stuff out to the Quadrant worlds? That, during the time where the Constitution was drawn up, there were no preliminary plans made for the dissemination of knowledge throughout the Quadrant?

What I'm postulating is that hardware equivalent or superior to what you can find in those SDs has already been distributed to the worlds that need them. There certainly is enough time, money and lift capacity available to do it.

I'd be less inclined to push the idea if Manticore hadn't halved its GSP by Case Lacoon on top of the Yawata Strike.

The SEM needs educated manpower to feed Saganami Island and the RMNs technical schools. It needs educated manpower for the Talboter battalions it needs to send to Meyers and the rest of the Madras sector. It needs educated manpower to populate the rebuilding of Manticore and the expansion of TQ industry.

But do these SDs provide enough capability to have a sufficiently large impact on that problem?

One problem is that the learning materials on those SDs will be geared towards educating someone who was already educated to SLN standards before joining the SLN. I would imagine that only very few people in the TQ, especially in the more backwater worlds, meet that requirement. That's a whole level of education that the learning materials on the SDs probably won't address, and that is crucial to the success of this whole venture.

The SEM needs all that manpower now and not six months or two years from now. It isn't going to get them "now" but it might not take six months either -- not with self-paced computer learning available.

No, it really doesn't. If this scheme of yours is started right now, in October of 1922 PD, and you expect enough people to get up to Manticoran standards of education with the materials provided in just half a year to make a material difference (something I find somewhat optimistic), then those people will arrive on the scene about 18 to 20 months after the start of the recovery effort, a time in which most of the heavy lifting for said effort has already been done.
As a result, I would argue that the Talbotter's contribution to that effort would be minimal, and that they could do a lot more good working on the infrastructure of their home systems; a task with a much more relaxed timeframe.

And then there's an issue with sheer numbers. If we assume your estimates to be true, that each SD can be used as a school environment for about 600 people, then this entire scheme (using only the SDs left over from Crandall's force, all 48 of them) can train just about 30000 people. 30.000 people who will be at an apprentice level in 6 or 12 months does not sound like much to me, and given that the most effective use of those people would be to stay at home and train more people, the impact of this training measure will be felt only a year or two down the line. And, of course, that is all under the assumption that no training efforts have been going on in the year prior to Crandall's attack.

Harold,

In answer to the 'When where and for how much?' (slightly re-ordered):

Where: Beowulf.

How much: Cost price, assuming it's not outright given in aid to an old friend and ally.

When: Flight time from the Lynx terminus to the relevant Talbott system, plus a day or two for Junction transits and in-system travel.

As for manpower requirements, there's absolutely no shortage of trained manpower for the RMN. THe shipyards won't be finishing new hulls for several months yet, while Saganami Island is completely untouched and the reduction in merchant fleet activity means BuPers can recall far more reservists from civilian service than previously.

Moreover, the discussions in Shadow of Freedom about raising manpower from Talbott are happening at the same time as the events of A Rising Thunder - for instance, I believe that the Battle of Saltash (Zavala's Rolands versus the SLN battlecruisers) happens two months before Second Manticore. This means that when the Quadrant's leaders were discussing what the Quadrant could do (and, let's not forget, they concluded that it could make a valuable contribution as it was), they didn't realise that the entire weight of the Republic of Haven's Marines/Army were going to be coming in on their side, in addition to the RHN.

In short, as others have said, using the SLN ships for training fulfills an urgent need that doesn't really exist. In the immediate term, the GA has enough resources to be going on with. Furthermore, I think you're overestimating the parlous state of the Old Kingdom's economy. Yes, it's taken a massive blow, but the war with Haven is over, Beowulf is now on board as a full ally (and even before that, Beowulfers were buying every Manticoran government bond they could get their hands on), Erewhon is coming back into the fold and Manticore is clearly aware of events in the Maya Sector and the potential economic opporotunities of a relationship their (exactly the kind of relationship they'll want to make, to encourage other seccessionists in the League).

Regarding using the ships as hospitals, that idea has more merit, but it would depend on the ships' capabilities. My impression is that a warship's sickbay, at least in the RMN, is there for low-level care most of the time and acute trauma care in battles - essentially, a combination of a GP clinic and an ER. Long-term care, whether of the injured or the sick, is a job for hospital ships and 'shore' installations, be they groundside or orbital. Is there much use in giving Talbott systems one or two spaceborne ERs, when there won't be the facility for follow-up care until the groundside hospitals are built/upgraded? Especially when there's no evidence in text of a healthcare crisis in the Quadrant? Yes, healthcare is worse than in the Old Kingdom or the League, significantly worse on some worlds; that's not the same as having a population ravaged by disease and infant mortality.

In this environment, does using the SLN ships, at no small cost (crewing, fuel, maintenance, screening of the SLN prisoners you're proposing to use - and wouldn't that be a propaganda gift to the Mandarins if spun the right way?), make sense, when those ships are going to start being superseded in a few months to a year by purpose-built groundside facilities? Whatever happens, any money invested in the SLN ships is only going to be providing a return short-term; the question is whether that return will justify the cost. I, and others here, don't think it will; you clearly think it will. Without any hard numbers, it's impossible to say for sure.

You've certainly come up with a more interesting idea for how to use these ships than certain others (a suggestion that the ships be converted into fast freighters leaps to mind...) with the idea of using them as hospitals. However, like every other suggestion that's been raised (including my own of using the survivors of Filaretta's fleet as dorm blocks for orbital workers), this feels to me like a solution looking for a problem.

Whitecold wrote:Weird Harold, why do you think Manticore lacks the capability to provide medical equipment or consumer electronics?

I can't figure out the right search terms or I'm remembering wrong, but I'm pretty sure that there is a description of Manticore's high orbitals the says most Manticoran industry had move to orbit so the planet was not polluted.

But that isn't the core of my argument: Manticore probably does have the capability to produce medical equipment and/or consumer electronics. They just have more urgent things to apply what ground-side industry there might be. All of the tools and instrumentation needed for orbital industry has to be made somewhere and diverting consumer industry seems a logical place to put emergency reconstruction contracts.

Whitecold wrote:Manticores civilian industry is ground side, where the vast majority of people live, and therefore want to work.

I can't find any definitive assertion of where Manticore's civilian industry. I remember that assertion that most of Manticore's civilian industry was on the space station. I can find the initial estimate of civilian casualties from the Minister of Industry, but that doesn't break the type of industry down much.

Whitecold wrote:Also Manticore still has a giant merchant fleet, control of the wormholes and money able to buy civilian equipment.

The merchant fleet has been recalled by Lacoon I, the financial market and banks were devastated by the Yawata Strike, it will cost billions to rebuild the orbital industry, recalling the merchant ships and the near total loss of space-born industry trashed the tax base.

Their main possible sources for medical equipment are Potsdam (andermani) Haven, and Beowulf.

Beowulf has probably the best medical equipment in the known universe (they may even have built some of the equipment for the SLN) but they are moving to a war economy and supporting Manticore's missile shortage.

That's the bottom line: I know where a captured task force's medical equipment is. I do NOT know when, how or if the SEM or TQ government will purchase and ship modern medical equipment and supplies.

The E wrote:What I'm postulating is that hardware equivalent or superior to what you can find in those SDs has already been distributed to the worlds that need them. There certainly is enough time, money and lift capacity available to do it.

There is still salvage value in the medical equipment and computer (they aren't that bad, the tactical software is just lousy (according to the PNE; if State Sec goons think the programming is crap, it probably is. )

The E wrote:But do these SDs provide enough capability to have a sufficiently large impact on that problem?

Yes. The educational capabilities are far more than you credit.

The E wrote:One problem is that the learning materials on those SDs will be geared towards educating someone who was already educated to SLN standards before joining the SLN.

That's where you're probably underestimating the SLN; they (at least frontier fleet) recruit from shell, protectorate and verge worlds with educational levels below the TQ. Their entry level courses are going to be comparable to what the PRN needed to train Dolist conscripts -- eg Dr Suess level with pictures.

Depending on the complexity of the career path the first step from "recruit" level to "apprentice" should be six weeks to six months. From "Apprentice" level to "Journeyman" level should take six months to a year, again depending on career path complexity.

A military can't really "waste" more than a couple of years bringing someone up to journeyman status -- not even in a prolong society. Prolong might extend enlistments and give time for longer training cycles for journeyman to Master and "Master" to "Supervisor" but no military can afford to carry anyone for long that isn't competent.

The E wrote:And then there's an issue with sheer numbers. If we assume your estimates to be true, that each SD can be used as a school environment for about 600 people,...

I think your estimate is WAY low -- about one fifth of my low estimate.

A normal crew is over "6,000." A thousand are needed for a harbor watch who can double as trainers for local apprentices. The Harbor Watch would take up much, if any, training capacity although their apprentices might. Food services and janitorial service if not assigned to resident students might take another hundred or two, but they won't take any training slots either, and since everything is going to stay in orbit, they can be day workers and not take up berthing spaces.

That leaves around 4,000 berths for resident students but doesn't account for day-students or commuters. Any place that has a computer terminal can be a study station. Gymnasiums, mess rooms, etc can be used for any lecture course needed.

Of course that doesn't count using the communications suite to make the computers wireless satellite servers where technology can accommodate.

The timeline does argue for the breakers, but the question raised was "what would you do with the captured ships since they're "obsolete crap" as warships?"

The answer is, "Use the knowledge they contain."