Honorverse ramblings and musings

Weird Harold wrote:
!!!Spoiler Warning!!! (My response below)





















According the few snippets we have:

The Solarian Leage (SLN) are attacking entire systems just for trading with Beowulf. The only thing possibly deterring them from attacking the AE directly is distance. (size wouldn't matter to them, the Andermani are just another bunch of jumped up neo-barbs)

If the SLN catches an IAMS somewhere in League space with anything originating in Manticore, Beowulf, or any of the GA members or anyone still trading with any of the above -- basically if the IAMS isn't hauling cargo for the SLN -- they're going to impound the ship and cargo. Thereby intimidating anyone trading with the enemy and reassuring League members of their care for law and free trade.

While you are completely correct, someone at the SLN should note that the IAN 1) has the 4th largest Wall in the Universe, and 2) was recently allied with Manticore against Haven. Which should lead to 3) and can kick our a$$ as hard as Manticore or Haven can.

I mentioned it before - the SLN is employing classic "bully tactics" - "we feel weak, so we will beat up someone weaker than us to compensate." Recently all the Bully's former victims have grown at least 2 Feet, put on 100 lbs and learned Krav Maga over the summer, and have no problem showing the bully their new tricks.

To put the Bully's world back into shape, he needs to find a new subject for his attentions. Specifically, one that sends a message to everybody, including the former victims, that he is still the alpha dog. Sadly, the Bully is to the point where his only available target is a former victim's asthmatic, wheelchair bound cousin - a perfectly helpless target - so he goes in for the kill....

Yeah, that is going to go over really well....

Theemile wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
!!!Spoiler Warning!!! (My response below)





















According the few snippets we have:

The Solarian Leage (SLN) are attacking entire systems just for trading with Beowulf. The only thing possibly deterring them from attacking the AE directly is distance. (size wouldn't matter to them, the Andermani are just another bunch of jumped up neo-barbs)

If the SLN catches an IAMS somewhere in League space with anything originating in Manticore, Beowulf, or any of the GA members or anyone still trading with any of the above -- basically if the IAMS isn't hauling cargo for the SLN -- they're going to impound the ship and cargo. Thereby intimidating anyone trading with the enemy and reassuring League members of their care for law and free trade.

While you are completely correct, someone at the SLN should note that the IAN 1) has the 4th largest Wall in the Universe, and 2) was recently allied with Manticore against Haven. Which should lead to 3) and can kick our a$$ as hard as Manticore or Haven can.

I mentioned it before - the SLN is employing classic "bully tactics" - "we feel weak, so we will beat up someone weaker than us to compensate." Recently all the Bully's former victims have grown at least 2 Feet, put on 100 lbs and learned Krav Maga over the summer, and have no problem showing the bully their new tricks.

To put the Bully's world back into shape, he needs to find a new subject for his attentions. Specifically, one that sends a message to everybody, including the former victims, that he is still the alpha dog. Sadly, the Bully is to the point where his only available target is a former victim's asthmatic, wheelchair bound cousin - a perfectly helpless target - so he goes in for the kill....

Yeah, that is going to go over really well....

@Harold:
What book has the coordinates of that snippet? I thought the League was attacking their own systems as punishment pursuant to complicity with the enemy. Not just any system. Beowulf is arguably their own. I do remember a snippet regarding a small, insignificant (militarily) neutral system near Beowulf. Is that the one you reference? The SLN chose them because they are one of Beowulf's neighbors. Sort of the classic psychological warfare game of... 'If I can't get to or hurt you, I'll hurt you through your friends and or loved ones, sentiment?'

@Theemile:
Krav Maga? U2FUNNY!

You are dead on the money. However, how likely is it that the League is aware of the abilities of the IAN? If they are completely, thrice, oblivious to the RMN, GSN and RHN they can't have a clue what they'd be up against with the IAN. Although, they should have better intel on the IAN as well, since they frequently operate much closer to League space in Silesia. And FF, again, should have better intel on the IAN as well.

SHOULD is a very dull metal of which to forge SL steel. LOL

quite possibly a cat wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:They haven't really lost nearly all their work. Some, yes. But what they have gained is Haven, AND Silesia AND Talbott. AND, shortly, the Maya Sector.

Those are all tiny compared to the League. Manticore was handling most of the League's internal trade, and I'm pretty sure an even bigger portion of its external trade. The League is massive. It is richer and larger than everyone else put together.

Depends on what you mean by handling most of the League's internal trade.

Manticore, due to lower transit fees to use its own or allied wormholes, dominated the segments of shipping that were primarily wormhole focused. But the feeder routes that went from each and every little system to the big transhipping warehouses where cargo concentrated and then fed into the wormhole network they wouldn't have had the same economic advantage. So I believe the bulk of the ton-miles through hyper were on non-Manticoran hulls. So you don't need anywhere near as many hulls to move the same volume of freight through the wormholes because your turnaround on each ship is so much quicker.

However since a larger percentage of SL internal trade did get carried on a Manticoran hull for part of it's journey they did get a lot of money from that trade. Replacing that volume of shipping to/from the wormholes won't happen quickly (if at all) from non League sources. And expanding away from the wormholes into Havenite space or Talbott and beyond will reduce their income. Even if every cargo is as valuable each trade trip takes longer, so the dollars per day you're generating goes down.

So fulling the idled Manticoran freighters is actually easier (though not easy) that replacing the revenue they earned.

Bluesqueak wrote:They haven't really lost nearly all their work. Some, yes. But what they have gained is Haven, AND Silesia AND Talbott. AND, shortly, the Maya Sector.

There also won't be plenty of neutral worlds doing the League carrying trade, because the OFS and Interstellers have systematically destroyed the independent economies of those 'neutral' worlds. See the Talbott Quadrant for their pre-Manticore carrying trade.

Yes it is.

We’ll prohibit you from trading with Europe, Japan, China or Mexico but we’ll let you trade with Indonesia and Niger along with Russia and North Korea. Good deal?

quite possibly a cat wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:They haven't really lost nearly all their work. Some, yes. But what they have gained is Haven, AND Silesia AND Talbott. AND, shortly, the Maya Sector.

Those are all tiny compared to the League. Manticore was handling most of the League's internal trade, and I'm pretty sure an even bigger portion of its external trade. The League is massive. It is richer and larger than everyone else put together.

Jonathan_S wrote:Depends on what you mean by handling most of the League's internal trade.

Manticore, due to lower transit fees to use its own or allied wormholes, dominated the segments of shipping that were primarily wormhole focused. But the feeder routes that went from each and every little system to the big transhipping warehouses where cargo concentrated and then fed into the wormhole network they wouldn't have had the same economic advantage. So I believe the bulk of the ton-miles through hyper were on non-Manticoran hulls. So you don't need anywhere near as many hulls to move the same volume of freight through the wormholes because your turnaround on each ship is so much quicker.

However since a larger percentage of SL internal trade did get carried on a Manticoran hull for part of it's journey they did get a lot of money from that trade. Replacing that volume of shipping to/from the wormholes won't happen quickly (if at all) from non League sources. And expanding away from the wormholes into Havenite space or Talbott and beyond will reduce their income. Even if every cargo is as valuable each trade trip takes longer, so the dollars per day you're generating goes down.

So fulling the idled Manticoran freighters is actually easier (though not easy) that replacing the revenue they earned.

Certainly sounds true Jonathan. But do allow for the special cases where shipments originate from points inside the Haven sector and must travel directly to those large transshipment warehouses. Some goods must travel from point A to point B only, and no stops in-between due to the perishability and delicate nature of the goods involved. Some shipments cannot endure the extra time of too much intermediate shipping and offloading. And if the goods originate from the Haven sector in the first place, well...

And since that reality provides a steady stream of Manticoran freighters, it seems it would always be cheaper to ship Manty, because...

1) Due to more freighters, the reliability of shipments are higher. No waiting for a freighter like it is from other sources. Manticore shipping wins by attrition. Think in terms of the bus routes where 5 buses service a particular route as opposed to 2. Or 1.

2) I would imagine that Manticoran shipments from these bulk warehouses headed thru the junctions are cheaper.

3) The insurance on Manticoran shipments are much cheaper because of a lower lost history. Pirates are probably less eager to jump Manty shipping.

4) Manticoran shipping represent Manticore and probably have a reputation of less corruption, unexplained lost goods, etc.

5) Shipping companies in Manticore probably have state of the art unloading systems to assist poor systems where stevedores are the rule of thumb (see stevedores). I certainly hope League shipping companies maintain their ships better than the League's navy.

6) Manticore can probably guarantee faster delivery because of the number of hulls and the guarantee/return turnaround policy on shipments has to be much much better from a rich system like Manticore. You ever ordered something from Italy, China or Japan? Well, I hope it worked and you didn't have to send it back. FORGET ABOUT IT!

Weird Harold wrote:
!!!Spoiler Warning!!!

cthia wrote:@Harold:
What book has the coordinates of that snippet? I thought the League was attacking their own systems as punishment pursuant to complicity with the enemy. Not just any system. Beowulf is arguably their own. I do remember a snippet regarding a small, insignificant (militarily) neutral system near Beowulf. Is that the one you reference?

That is one of at least two. The other was "Roseandheather's" destroyer commander... Not as clearcut as the one you identified, but strongly suggestive and NOT the same as Beowulf's neighbor (daughter colony?)

Manticore lost the majority of it's orbital industrial capasity in OB. While there were some of the detatched yard facilities which were dormant during the targeting run-up to OB and not hit, they would have had little more than maintence crews aboard and not a significant number of trained & experienced shipbuilding workers. The rest of the surviving spacebar industrial operations seem to be in the the astroid belt resource extraction and refining operations types of facilities.

One of the pieces that stands our about the personel losses (in space) from OB was the experience levels are just gone for so much of the heavy industry. That is ship contstruction & repair, military equipment including missiles and electronics. I could be wrong but a lot of manufacturing for civilian market- both Manticorain and for export was also being done in orbital facilities. That is ONE of the reasons that replacing the manufacturing workforce is going to take years- there wasn't signifcant numbers of people working in similar types of industry on the three inhabited planets who could easily transition to the replacement facilites in space.
All the replacement facilities, starting from the stations/habitats themselves and all the way out to the equipment to make the tools to make new equipment has to be aquired from somewhere else (Beowulf, Haven, the IAE, probably some Erwhon etc) and a whole lot of people are going to have to be imported to help set up the new facilities, train new Manticorain workers, and fill a vast list of positions and specialties till Manticore gets enough people up to speed.

Grayson wasn't hit as hard primarily because most of it's military construction/mfg was out at Blackbird and separate from the nominaly "civilian" facilities near Grayson. There was also the fact that the Alignment didn't have enough ships (and apparently weapons able to be delivered by the assigned ships) to hit the civilian manufactring along with the other targets.

Lacoon I pulled all the Mantiorain flagged merchant shipping out of SL space. That included leased/chartered ships working for Transtellars as well as those for Manticorian shipping firms or independents.
That had the dual benifit of removing them from probable harm (or being held as hostiges) and crippling the SL commerce and economy by removing the more than 50% of shipping capacity which was Mantcorian owned/registered.

Lacoon II closed the Manticore Wormhole Junction to SL flagged traffic AND closed all of the siezed wormhole bridges to that same group of traffic.
That had three large effects. 1st was to further cripple the SL's commerce by forcing SL shipping to only use hyperspace routing by cutting off much of the existing shorter time routing within the SL representd by using the bridges. 2nd was to greatly cut off or make totaly unfeasable profitable trade to places only economicaly viable by use of said bridges of which the Junction was a major portion. The 3rd was to further reduce the carrying capasity of the SL merchant fleet by pinning a fair number of ships on the wrong side of one or more wormholes such that they were going to take a really long time to get home being forced to only go by hyperspace.

Both Lacoon I & II was going to play havoc with deliveries and capacities. They were also going to lead to major damage to all sorts of companies and chunks of planitary economies and those who depended on the consistent and regular flow of goods and credits between star systems.

We didn't see a lot of Aldermani merchant shipping in the books so it is not clear how much of it was flowing back and forth to the SL area and the Verge. It may be that it is/was concentrated close to the IAE and in Silesia.
Aldermani transports could be carrying "civilian" goods through the Junction to the SL and bringing cargos back but nothing close to the amount of shipping that was going on Manticoian bottoms before the Lacoons.
If the SL decided to start confiscating IA merchant ships, that would cut off even that small flow of trade really quickly.

We also don't see what laws and regulations the GA (or specifically Manticore) has put into place reguarding cargo restrictions through the Junction since the delaration of War with the SL. There must be some but we don't know what they are.
Neutral Shipping is going to be an interesting category as is embargoed goods & materials.

Can you picture some SL BC or a squadron of DD's hanging aroung near the Sigma Draconis terminus to make "customs stops" on merchant ships comming in through the terminus or heading to it having come out of hyperspace? Could be a truly dangerous place for a SLN ship.

Hi cthia,

Silesia is further from the SL than the AE or the SKM/SEM, around 700 LY from Sol, with the only two known associated termini being Basilisk and Gregor, ie via the MWJ.

Kingsford intends to send BC's etc to Silesia to raid SEM/GA shipping, not really knowing local conditions at a time when the SLN presence in the verge needs to be reinforced, not reduced, but the SLN are primarily targets wherever they are, whatever ship class they are.

Between the RMN's 48 Kamerling system defense cruisers [HoS] and the system defense LAC squadrons, I expect few raiders to report home even before Mycroft comes on line.

Bullying defenseless star systems because they were friends with Beowulf is stupid on many levels, since it puts every system that relied on the SLN for protection on notice they need someone else with a bigger club to replace them, ie the GA.

Two thirds of the SL only had LAC's, and most of the rest, probably totaling at least around ~88.8% if not 93.3+% had hyper capable navies too small to seriously trouble the SLN if it came to call, but now they all need protection from the SLN; until they can build up their own navies, which could take decades, the GA is the only refuge in the storm, and the only way they can repay the GA is through trade, probably discounted, which probably will go toward rebuilding the SEM and Grayson orbital infrastructure.

Once the attack on Beowulf has been dealt with, I expect the BF reserve to be quickly sent into the respective local sun, while small GA detachments of a couple SDP's and CLAC's [probably RHN] etc are distributed to the most vulnerable systems to demonstrate just how obsolete the SLN's battle calculus based on tonnage is by destroying 50+ times the GA's tonnage.

It would only take around 15-16 such demonstrations to eliminate the active BF as well, which might not take that long, or the few monthes UC is supposed to add to the timeline.

Here's hoping for more snippets in February or March.

L


[quote="cthia"][quote="Theemile"]quote="Weird Harold"

!!!Spoiler Warning!!! [b](My response below)[/b]





















According the few snippets we have:

The Solarian Leage (SLN) are attacking entire systems just for trading with Beowulf. The only thing possibly deterring them from attacking the AE directly is distance. (size wouldn't matter to them, the Andermani are just another bunch of jumped up neo-barbs)

If the SLN catches an IAMS somewhere in League space with anything originating in Manticore, Beowulf, or any of the GA members or anyone still trading with any of the above -- basically if the IAMS isn't hauling cargo for the SLN -- they're going to impound the ship and cargo. Thereby intimidating anyone trading with the enemy and reassuring League members of their care for law and free trade. [/quote]

While you are completely correct, someone at the SLN should note that the IAN 1) has the 4th largest Wall in the Universe, and 2) was recently allied with Manticore against Haven. Which should lead to 3) and can kick our a$$ as hard as Manticore or Haven can.

I mentioned it before - the SLN is employing classic "bully tactics" - "we feel weak, so we will beat up someone weaker than us to compensate." Recently all the Bully's former victims have grown at least 2 Feet, put on 100 lbs and learned Krav Maga over the summer, and have no problem showing the bully their new tricks.

To put the Bully's world back into shape, he needs to find a new subject for his attentions. Specifically, one that sends a message to everybody, including the former victims, that he is still the alpha dog. Sadly, the Bully is to the point where his only available target is a former victim's asthmatic, wheelchair bound cousin - a perfectly helpless target - so he goes in for the kill....

Yeah, that is going to go over really well....[/quote]

@Harold:
What book has the coordinates of that snippet? I thought the League was attacking their own systems as punishment pursuant to complicity with the enemy. Not just any system. Beowulf is arguably their own. I do remember a snippet regarding a small, insignificant (militarily) neutral system [i]near[/i] Beowulf. Is that the one you reference? The SLN chose them because they are one of Beowulf's neighbors. Sort of the classic psychological warfare game of... 'If I can't get to or hurt [i]you[/i], I'll hurt you through your friends and or loved ones, sentiment?'

@Theemile:
Krav Maga? U2FUNNY!

You are dead on the money. However, how likely is it that the League [i]is[/i] aware of the abilities of the IAN? If they are completely, thrice, oblivious to the RMN, GSN and RHN they can't have a clue what they'd be up against with the IAN. Although, they should have better intel on the IAN as well, since they frequently operate much closer to League space in Silesia. And FF, again, should have better intel on the IAN as well.

SHOULD is a very dull metal of which to forge SL steel. LOL[/quote]

lyonheart wrote:Hi cthia,

Silesia is further from the SL than the AE or the SKM/SEM, around 700 LY from Sol, with the only two known associated termini being Basilisk and Gregor, ie via the MWJ.

Kingsford intends to send BC's etc to Silesia to raid SEM/GA shipping, not really knowing local conditions at a time when the SLN presence in the verge needs to be reinforced, not reduced, but the SLN are primarily targets wherever they are, whatever ship class they are.

Between the RMN's 48 Kamerling system defense cruisers [HoS] and the system defense LAC squadrons, I expect few raiders to report home even before Mycroft comes on line.

Bullying defenseless star systems because they were friends with Beowulf is stupid on many levels, since it puts every system that relied on the SLN for protection on notice they need someone else with a bigger club to replace them, ie the GA.

Two thirds of the SL only had LAC's, and most of the rest, probably totaling at least around ~88.8% if not 93.3+% had hyper capable navies too small to seriously trouble the SLN if it came to call, but now they all need protection from the SLN; until they can build up their own navies, which could take decades, the GA is the only refuge in the storm, and the only way they can repay the GA is through trade, probably discounted, which probably will go toward rebuilding the SEM and Grayson orbital infrastructure.

Once the attack on Beowulf has been dealt with, I expect the BF reserve to be quickly sent into the respective local sun, while small GA detachments of a couple SDP's and CLAC's [probably RHN] etc are distributed to the most vulnerable systems to demonstrate just how obsolete the SLN's battle calculus based on tonnage is by destroying 50+ times the GA's tonnage.

It would only take around 15-16 such demonstrations to eliminate the active BF as well, which might not take that long, or the few monthes UC is supposed to add to the timeline.

Here's hoping for more snippets in February or March.

L


[















@Theemile:
Krav Maga? U2FUNNY!

You are dead on the money. However, how likely is it that the League is aware of the abilities of the IAN? If they are completely, thrice, oblivious to the RMN, GSN and RHN they can't have a clue what they'd be up against with the IAN. Although, they should have better intel on the IAN as well, since they frequently operate much closer to League space in Silesia. And FF, again, should have better intel on the IAN as well.

SHOULD is a very dull metal of which to forge SL steel. LOL

[/quote]


Keep in mind that the voyage to Silesia without using the junctions is a very long one. It would be very difficult on your logistics to say the least.

It would also be a really tough trip back. I don't know if the Sollies even are aware of which worlds are IAN and which are Mantie. They could have an interesting war out in this area.

Perhaps they can claim victories over some small planets but in the long run they will be going nowhere.

And GA ships can then have a nice justification for attacking Sollie planets with extensive shipbuilding capacity. Note that if Sollie ships are taken or destroyed and the yards to create them are destroyed, once the war is over they will have an even greater percentage of trade.