Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

Brigade XO wrote:When you read though what is going on just as Fillerta arrives out of hyper, it is clear that the DB that is more-or-less hanging around the Junction is in fact there as part of the Rageing Justice plan is only there to carry the word through the wormhole by Beowulf and link up with the SLN task force and let them know Fillerta has arrived out of hyper. The word of that event gets to the Junction really quickly (as expected) and Astro Control lets that "Newsie" DB jump into th line to let the news break outside of the Binary System.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I've mentioned this before but will do so again: the way the D.B. was depending on getting information from the inner system was also stupid.

The wormhole is 7 light-hours from the inner system. What was supposed to carry the information in the first place between those two places? Did they have another D.B., as the first one had been holding position in the queue so it could transit soon? Depending on the enemy to tell you so you can bring your reinforcements is beyond stupid. (But I don't doubt the SLN could do just that)

Without hyperspace jumps, a Solarian state-of-the art DB would take 18 hours to go from the inner system to the Junction. So what was the delay the SLN was expecting?

Besides, even if she did get the information timely and did get past the forts, how quickly would Tsang be able to get to Manticore? She would do a dogleg, because Solarian astrogation is not very good. The transit time is therefore limited by the time it takes the hypergenerators to cycle four times: at the junction to hyperspace, at the intermediate point to n-space, at that point back into hyperspace, and at the inner system hyperlimit to n-space. That's what, 10 to 15 minutes per transition?

This part of the Raging Justice was so completely harebrained it had absolutely no chance of succeeding. And that speaks a lot about the CO: that Tsang had been willing to even attempt shows how short-sighted she was. Did she even run a simulation?

Brigade XO wrote:Beowulf made Manticore aware of the information their source passed to them about the attack on the Binary System. The SLN sent an officer to "notify" Beowulf that they would be comming.
When the SLN force showed up and took a position the BSDF with it's commander onboard- notified the SLN Admiral that BSDF would not only resist the ILLEGAL (under the SL constitution) attempt to force transit of the wormhole to Manticore, but that it would attack the SL force and defend the wormhole.
When you read though what is going on just as Fillerta arrives out of hyper, it is clear that the DB that is more-or-less hanging around the Junction is in fact there as part of the Rageing Justice plan is only there to carry the word through the wormhole by Beowulf and link up with the SLN task force and let them know Fillerta has arrived out of hyper. The word of that event gets to the Junction really quickly (as expected) and Astro Control lets that "Newsie" DB jump into th line to let the news break outside of the Binary System.
If the SLN admiral had any doubts that Beowulf and the BSDF was cooperating with RMN, just after she starts to move her forces and is again braced by the Commander of BSDF and told they will open fire if she continues......and moments pass and the RMN task force drops it's screening...the SLN admiral should have had some inkling that even if she were to be successful in engaging bouth BSDF (which was of a signicant size vs her own) that taking on them AND the RMN force (even if was of an equivelent of the BSDF in terms of weapons, the SLN force surviving to force transit of the wormhole is going to be transiting into the most heavealy defended wormhole location in the known universe ....AND THEY ALREADY KNOW THEY ARE COMMING! How could they not? Manticore's force is clearly not only between the SLN force and the wormhole, they are manifestly in cooperation with BSDF. How could you imagine that they would not have sent a MILITARY ship through the wormhole already to notify Astro Control and the Junction Defence Forces that X number of SLN capital ships would try and come though?

You want to fly into WHAT on full alert with it's weapons hot and how many layers of defensive and offensive weapons including mines, forts and hyper-capable warships? You will be comming out of really focused point in space effectivley blind for X amount of time and the entire defensive weaponry of that one exit lane is going to be essentialy a cone of weapons systems (hot and almost bore-sighted) on anything popping into existence out of the wormhole. Really, you think that is going to be a good idea? Given what you think you know about the BSDF SD's and screen plus the RMN force- probably at least as good (remember you really don't belive the stories about Byng and Crandall) as BSDF, how many of you ships are going to be capable of making the transit post gagement to get to the wormhole? And that is just what happens to you while you are still in or even close to the exit lane. Layered defence with rotation on multiple sets of FORTRESSES for EACH lane. Plus more mobile units. Humm.

Time to fish or cut bait, buttercup.....Oh, back off, an SLN admiral with two brain cells to rub together........smartest thing you have done since you got out of diapers.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Not even the RMN, with a a fleet consisting exclusively of Invictus, could force the transit. Transiting the wormhole gives you basically two choices: 1) a mass transit of about 25 superdreadnoughts, leaving the wormhole destabilised for 18 hours, or 2) one SD every 2 and a half minutes. Obviously proposition 2 is nonsense: a single SD is not going to win against the combined firepower of the junction forts. How about proposition 1? Well, the Manties know just how much tonne of metal can come through in a mass transit, so it stands to reason the forts are designed to fight that much and win.

tlb wrote:If the only information needed from the inner system is the arrival of Admiral Filareta's force, then that knowledge is available at FTL speed through the gravitic detector. The only stupid part is that the DB should be able to also report that the forts were online and alert.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
I've mentioned this before but will do so again: the way the D.B. was depending on getting information from the inner system was also stupid.

The wormhole is 7 light-hours from the inner system. What was supposed to carry the information in the first place between those two places? Did they have another D.B., as the first one had been holding position in the queue so it could transit soon? Depending on the enemy to tell you so you can bring your reinforcements is beyond stupid. (But I don't doubt the SLN could do just that)

Without hyperspace jumps, a Solarian state-of-the art DB would take 18 hours to go from the inner system to the Junction. So what was the delay the SLN was expecting?

Besides, even if she did get the information timely and did get past the forts, how quickly would Tsang be able to get to Manticore? She would do a dogleg, because Solarian astrogation is not very good. The transit time is therefore limited by the time it takes the hypergenerators to cycle four times: at the junction to hyperspace, at the intermediate point to n-space, at that point back into hyperspace, and at the inner system hyperlimit to n-space. That's what, 10 to 15 minutes per transition?

This part of the Raging Justice was so completely harebrained it had absolutely no chance of succeeding. And that speaks a lot about the CO: that Tsang had been willing to even attempt shows how short-sighted she was. Did she even run a simulation?

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Damn straight. Had Tsang gotten thru and Honor died, then what? I know what ...

A bunch of tears crying shoulda woulda coulda.

Now let ask me you a question. This was the battle of the century the galaxy bragged about for years. Nobody knew what toys the real arm of the law would be bringing. Had the RMN found out that Tsang had a very powerful Fleet that would rip a hole in their ass, you still say yield to diplomatic immunity?

Before you answer, please allow me to change into my Rodney Dangerfield persona.

"Alright, I'll say it! Seize my ass! The Manties shoulda blown that phucking SOB right out of the water! His diplomatic immunity was waived when he chose to participate in a war! Flirting with losing a war over a technicality is the worse decision in history second only to the Charge of the Light Brigade!" Rodney out.

That is a bunch of nonsense and you should know it. What is it about the fates of Byng and Crandall that makes you think that Tsang's fleet could force itself past the Manticoran fleet that had blocked them? Pretend the RMN was not blocking and they had used the wormhole. What makes you think that they would escape the junction's forts? The refusal of Beowulf to allow that movement was on humanitarian grounds, they knew everyone would die in the forts' fire.

Except in the lack of respect, that is nothing like Rodney Dangerfield. Again with the imaginary "diplomatic immunity"?

cthia wrote:Byng, nor Crandle, were serious responses by the SL. They still had no clue attall what they faced. Both Byng and Crandall were still operating as poor little misguided arrogant Sollies. Operation Raging Justice was the best the Sollies had. Not only that, they sent their best COs. It was the first serious formal response dispatched by the Sollies.

There is NO WAY IN HELL the Alliance could have known without a shadow of a doubt there wouldn't be any surprises in the manner of what Shannon's Triple Ripple did to the RMN. There was still some mystique over what formidable capabilities the SLN had. Didn't the RMN itself say the massive beast could deploy game changing tech in record time? There were still too many variables to take a chance on allowing your enemy forces to consolidate.

It was stupid to take that risk. As readers, WE knew Tsang's Fleet was a pussycat. The RMN couldn't have known. They guessed right. But they didn't HAVE to guess. They allowed galactic coordination of forces. Stupid. It worked out for them because in this case they were fortunate they didn't get bitten on, and deep up in the ass. Remember, the Salamander originally had a fatal missile with her name on it.

But if the SLN did deploy game changing tech and Tsang's Fleet was the real hammer, then the RMN would have been screwed, considering Honor would've already had her hands full.

Jonathan_S wrote:An arriving fleet would make a really large emergence signal. But I have serious doubts that any ship's onboard sensors (much less a little DB's) are sensitive enough to see even large signals from 7 light hours. In HotQ wasn't HMS Fearless unable to directly see Thunder of God exit hyper? And that would have been at like 20-30 lightminutes.

So I don't think the DB is going to be directly observing Filareta's arrival.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Byng, nor Crandle, were serious responses by the SL. They still had no clue attall what they faced. Both Byng and Crandall were still operating as poor little misguided arrogant Sollies. Operation Raging Justice was the best the Sollies had. Not only that, they sent their best COs. It was the first serious formal response dispatched by the Sollies.

There is NO WAY IN HELL the Alliance could have known without a shadow of a doubt there wouldn't be any surprises in the manner of what Shannon's Triple Ripple did to the RMN. There was still some mystique over what formidable capabilities the SLN had. Didn't the RMN itself say the massive beast could deploy game changing tech in record time? There were still too many variables to take a chance on allowing your enemy forces to consolidate.

It was stupid to take that risk. As readers, WE knew Tsang's Fleet was a pussycat. The RMN couldn't have known. They guessed right. But they didn't HAVE to guess. They allowed galactic coordination of forces. Stupid. It worked out for them because in this case they were fortunate they didn't get bitten on, and deep up in the ass. Remember, the Salamander originally had a fatal missile with her name on it.

But if the SLN did deploy game changing tech and Tsang's Fleet was the real hammer, then the RMN would have been screwed, considering Honor would've already had her hands full.

Even if we were to agree that Admiral Filareta might have something special, there is no way I am going to agree that Admiral Tsang would be more than a pile of scrap at the junction. The biggest proof that was true is that the force withdrew.

tlb wrote:The Manticoran experts had been all over the types of ships and software that the SLN had, courtesy of Byng and Crandall. Also they knew that Filareta's fleet had gone off for exercises at the same time as Crandall, so the only difference possible was whatever they had in pods. But there was no time to create any new missile up to the level of those of the Grand Alliance, and that still leaves the invading fleet with insufficient missile defense.

The Rules of War basically limit action against people that pose no offensive threat, which means that people that follow the Rules of War still have ample opportunity to shoot at those that can actually make a tactical difference. I do not think you will find in the books a case where someone fought and lost a battle because they scrupulously followed the Rules of War. Can you find such a case in recent history? So I find your hostility to the the DB ridiculous.