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Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?

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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:58 am

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Loren Pechtel wrote:
cthia wrote:Do note the two points that I highlighted. I don't think that point one will matter because of the reality of point two. Because of the total stealth of the Spiders, the GA will be deep into enemy territory without knowing it. How do you know you are not already behind enemy lines when you can't see the enemy. That is the tactic used by the Japanese in Vietnam. The enemy was hidden underground. Hence, in several cases the Marines had advanced too far without knowing it.

Heck, at Darius, I suspect that the GA will already be behind enemy lines upon hypering into the system.

The LDs: Didn't anyone tell you. We like stooging around the hyper limit too. We catch a lot of flies that way.


There have been other discussions about the area of the hypersurface--it's simply too big for Darius to guard it in force.

Understood. But it isn't too big to make educated guesses. There has to be likely vectors that an enemy might take to approach any system from hyper, depending on the particular mechanics of hyper travel in that area.

Also, isn't there a limitation on jumping? E.g., if an enemy exits hyper somewhere beyond the limit, isnt there a maximum radius he can microjump from that location?

Besides, the GA didn't employ any of those tactics at Galton. And that was Honor. Why won't they be just as complacent as sitting ducks?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 10:39 am

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cthia wrote:Understood. But it isn't too big to make educated guesses. There has to be likely vectors that an enemy might take to approach any system from hyper, depending on the particular mechanics of hyper travel in that area.


Correct, but the enemy can make the same guesses and can therefore avoid those places. Why would they arrive at exactly where they're exepcted?

Also, isn't there a limitation on jumping? E.g., if an enemy exits hyper somewhere beyond the limit, isnt there a maximum radius he can microjump from that location?

Besides, the GA didn't employ any of those tactics at Galton. And that was Honor. Why won't they be just as complacent as sitting ducks?


Somehow Honor knew it wasn't a risk. We aren't told how. It was also a message: "I'm arriving at the exactly most likely arrival point and there's nothing you can do to dislodge me."
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 5:17 pm

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tlb wrote:
runsforcelery wrote:There's no way anyone like the Detweilers would be foolish enough — or desperate enough, certainly short of their own discovery and imminent defeat/demise — to try anything like it. Adolf Hitler may have asked "Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians," but the Detweilers are smart enough to have learned from his example.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's not a path to victory. That's death throes.

Cthia is proposing these options as paths to victory. I don't see any of them working that way. If they try any of those things, all the other predictions RFC made in the same post will come true: the entire Galaxy will band together against them. So if they try this when they're about to be defeated, that only ensures they do get defeated without any possibility of a dialogue.

They may devastate a few planets while going down, but down they go.

I quite agree; my chagrin is due to arguing that RFC was not predisposed to write such a scene, even as part of death throes.

I still don't get it. The one ingredient that is specific to this situation only is that Darius and this enemy is hidden. The Alignment can do whatever the hell it wants to do until it is found.

The author simply cannot imprison the human element found in human nature. Survival is the greater force acting upon the consciousness. It will overpower even morals, scruples and values. Of which the Alignment has none.

The will to survive will make one kill ones own parents if ones life is in danger from said parents. Survival will make some parents choose death for an unborn but very much wanted baby to save the life of the mother in complicated births. The will to survive will make the most prudish mother choose a life of prostitution to live.

What is the limit on the maximum number of casualties mankind is willing to accept to survive? I think history has proven time and time again that no such limit exists.

The MA has proven it lacks any limits, morals, scruples, or values. And as I mentioned before, this entity has invested centuries of time and money on this war. Why would they accept defeat without pulling out all the stops. It is like when America had the only atomic bomb. Why should the MA not use the LDs to KEW planets? Especially when the Galaxy cannot find them to retaliate? And especially since the enemy's morals, scruples and values prevents reciprocation?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 6:01 pm

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cthia wrote:I still don't get it. The one ingredient that is specific to this situation only is that Darius and this enemy is hidden. The Alignment can do whatever the hell it wants to do until it is found.

The author simply cannot imprison the human element found in human nature. Survival is the greater force acting upon the consciousness. It will overpower even morals, scruples and values. Of which the Alignment has none.

The will to survive will make one kill ones own parents if ones life is in danger from said parents. Survival will make some parents choose death for an unborn but very much wanted baby to save the life of the mother in complicated births. The will to survive will make the most prudish mother choose a life of prostitution to live.

What is the limit on the maximum number of casualties mankind is willing to accept to survive? I think history has proven time and time again that no such limit exists.

The MA has proven it lacks any limits, morals, scruples, or values. And as I mentioned before, this entity has invested centuries of time and money on this war. Why would they accept defeat without pulling out all the stops. It is like when America had the only atomic bomb. Why should the MA not use the LDs to KEW planets? Especially when the Galaxy cannot find them to retaliate? And especially since the enemy's morals, scruples and values prevents reciprocation?

But the Mesan Alignment is not accepting defeat by doing nothing as long as its location is unknown. The whole point of the Galton sacrifice was to make everyone think that the Malign is already defeated; so it would be counter productive to do these things before it is clear that the sacrifice failed.

Every attack has a chance of going wrong, which is why the Detweiler sons talked their father out of Oyster Bay II, the attack on the forces at Trevor's Star. So suppose one of those Leonard Detweiler ships had a failure that killed the crew without destroying the ship, that would expose the spider drive and the location of Darius. That is unlikely, but what do they gain that would help their survival by these genocidal attacks? Is there any point short of killing so many, that their enemies beg the Renaissance Factor to protect them? But can that point be reached, because your question (that I have highlighted) also applies to those fighting the Malign?
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 6:44 pm

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cthia wrote:I still don't get it. The one ingredient that is specific to this situation only is that Darius and this enemy is hidden. The Alignment can do whatever the hell it wants to do until it is found.


Not exactly. First, they'll be found much faster if more resources are devoted to finding them. If they manage to piss everyone off without exception, then there'll be tens of thousands of ships searching for them. It'll be a matter of time until it happens, then game over.

More importantly, it's the fact that they don't want to "do whatever the hell they want" because that is not the objective. They're not evil personified that want to destroy the rest of humanity for the sake of sadism. They want to rule over humanity and they have a Plan. They think that Their Way is the best path forward for humanity and that the ends justify the means: killing some people and culling a portion of the population is necessary to achieve "greater good."

That implies that there is a humanity to be led by them after the dust settles and this can't happen if they've managed to piss everyone of so thoroughly that their deeds can never be forgotten. Revanchism would eventually happen and they'd be toppled.

The author simply cannot imprison the human element found in human nature. Survival is the greater force acting upon the consciousness. It will overpower even morals, scruples and values. Of which the Alignment has none.


Quite to the contrary. They have values and a set of morals. They may be twisted and distorted, but they exist. In their mind, they're the benefactors to humanity and the best thing that could ever happen to it.

In any case, we're not talking about survival here. I agree with you that in their death throes they could do a lot of damage. But they're not dying right now, so why would they lash out? What's the logical reason? What's the benefit?

The MA has proven it lacks any limits, morals, scruples, or values. And as I mentioned before, this entity has invested centuries of time and money on this war. Why would they accept defeat without pulling out all the stops. It is like when America had the only atomic bomb. Why should the MA not use the LDs to KEW planets? Especially when the Galaxy cannot find them to retaliate? And especially since the enemy's morals, scruples and values prevents reciprocation?


Because we're not talking about defeat, just yet.

Until defeat is inevitable, they will act rationally and towards a goal. Then, defeat comes swiftly, before they can lash out.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 7:53 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Because we're not talking about defeat, just yet.

Until defeat is inevitable, they will act rationally and towards a goal. Then, defeat comes swiftly, before they can lash out.

Note that they admitted that their one irrational act was a big mistake: the destruction of the Beowulf orbitals in a way that proved it was a premeditated act independent of the Solarian Navy attack.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:19 pm

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tlb wrote:While I agree that a flawed random number generator is bad, you were saying "in the old days you couldn't export crypto with too big a key space". That is not the same thing as "a small key space", which would only prevent you from exporting if the customers complained or refused to buy your code. The legal impediment was against exporting a generator and encryption system with a large key space (which made it difficult to decrypt), not one with a small key space that was relatively easy to decrypt.


I'm comparing a flawed key generator to the restricted key space that was all that was allowed to be exported. Whether it's deliberate or accidental has nothing to do with the lack of difficulty in cracking it.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:22 pm

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cthia wrote:Understood. But it isn't too big to make educated guesses. There has to be likely vectors that an enemy might take to approach any system from hyper, depending on the particular mechanics of hyper travel in that area.

Also, isn't there a limitation on jumping? E.g., if an enemy exits hyper somewhere beyond the limit, isnt there a maximum radius he can microjump from that location?

Besides, the GA didn't employ any of those tactics at Galton. And that was Honor. Why won't they be just as complacent as sitting ducks?


As you say--educated guesses. Thus you don't make educated guesses, you simply define acceptable minimum and maximum distances from the edge of the sphere and pick a **random** spot.

I do agree they didn't employ such tactics at Galton. I don't know who wrote that battle scene but they sure weren't thinking when they did so.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Fri Jan 14, 2022 10:18 pm

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tlb wrote:While I agree that a flawed random number generator is bad, you were saying "in the old days you couldn't export crypto with too big a key space". That is not the same thing as "a small key space", which would only prevent you from exporting if the customers complained or refused to buy your code. The legal impediment was against exporting a generator and encryption system with a large key space (which made it difficult to decrypt), not one with a small key space that was relatively easy to decrypt.

Loren Pechtel wrote:I'm comparing a flawed key generator to the restricted key space that was all that was allowed to be exported. Whether it's deliberate or accidental has nothing to do with the lack of difficulty in cracking it.

I simply do not understand your point, because whether something is allowed to be exported is a legal issue and generally is related to the difficult of decryption. That is: the more difficult to decrypt, then the more restrictions on export. Here is what Wikipedia says about the current status of the law in the US:
As of 2009, non-military cryptography exports from the U.S. are controlled by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. Some restrictions still exist, even for mass market products, particularly with regard to export to "rogue states" and terrorist organizations. Militarized encryption equipment, TEMPEST-approved electronics, custom cryptographic software, and even cryptographic consulting services still require an export license. Furthermore, encryption registration with the BIS is required for the export of "mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits". In addition, other items require a one-time review by, or notification to, BIS prior to export to most countries. For instance, the BIS must be notified before open-source cryptographic software is made publicly available on the Internet, though no review is required. Export regulations have been relaxed from pre-1996 standards, but are still complex. Other countries, notably those participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement, have similar restrictions.

It is easy to understand the official attitude: just consider the police statements whenever they want access to the contents of an iPhone.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sat Jan 15, 2022 1:47 pm

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tlb wrote:I simply do not understand your point, because whether something is allowed to be exported is a legal issue and generally is related to the difficult of decryption. That is: the more difficult to decrypt, then the more restrictions on export. Here is what Wikipedia says about the current status of the law in the US:[cut]


Loren can answer what he meant, but what I understood and meant myself was comparing a flawed RNG to the limitations that existed before 1996 (and those that still do if you don't register or isn't Open Source). I'm old enough that my first crypto application was PGPi: the international version of PGP, which was exported from the US by printing a book, which enjoyed First Amendment protections, and OCR-scanning it elsewhere(*).

The problem isn't legality, it's the effect: a limited key space makes brute-force attacking the the possible solutions much, much easier.

(*) DVD Jon later printed the encryption keys for DVDs on T-shirts and that enjoyed similar protections. IIRC, there were also songs of someone singing them...
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