Honorverse ramblings and musings

cthia wrote:Is there a reason systems cannot be seeded with Forts, instead of Forts pretty much only being used exclusively for defending junctions? With the advent of Apollo and its long-legged missiles, it seems to me the time has come, actually making this feasible?

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Is there a reason systems cannot be seeded with Forts, instead of Forts pretty much only being used exclusively for defending junctions? With the advent of Apollo and its long-legged missiles, it seems to me the time has come, actually making this feasible?

Forts are big, expensive, immobile structures. Fine for defending a relatively fix point in space, like WHJ or Terminus, or a gravity anchor, like a planet.

They're not really practical for defending a whole system.


Mycroft, (or Moriarty,) OTOH, uses a series of Cruiser sized command modules to control shoals of System Defense Missile Pods. (Apollo 4DSDMs, for Mycroft, "conventional" 3DSDM or 4DSDM for Moriarty.) An entire constellation of control modules for Mycroft or Moriarty takes about the same amount of materials (and dollars?) as a single fort and requires fewer people to man.

cthia wrote:Moriarty and Mycroft represent the RMNs latest technology.

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Moriarty and Mycroft represent the RMNs latest technology.

Moriarty is RHN technology, but well within the capability of anyone who can build a cruiser hull and stuff it with fire control links.

The point is that forts are big and expensive and not needed except as targets to distract invaders from the real control modules.

Jonathan_S wrote: Moriarty we know is a pure relay system and needs a central control node and ideally a couple of back up control modes, that are best installed in big nasty forts to protect them from things like Mistletoe. Though those forts are pretty deep in the system. Possibly in planetary orbit.

At All Costs
Chapter Thirty-seven wrote:In Arthur orbit, the installation codenamed Moriarty came fully on-line for the first time. It wasn't a very huge installation. In fact, it was no larger than a heavy cruiser, and it had been transported in two prefabricated modules aboard a fleet supply ship, then assembled in place in less than forty-eight hours.

As warship tonnages went, four hundred thousand wasn't a lot . . . unless all of it was dedicated to fire control.


Moriarty was Shannon Foraker's system defense answer to the individual inferiority of the Republic's missile pods. The control station was a flat, light-drinking black, constructed of radar absorbent materials. It was almost impossible to detect, as long as it practiced strict emission-control discipline, and the Manticoran recon arrays had missed it entirely.

Now it reached out through the other innocent-looking orbital platforms which had been seeded about the system at the same time. Each of those platforms was, in effect, a less capable, simpler minded version of the RMN's own Keyholes. They formed a network, an expanding spray of tentacles, which gave Moriarty literally thousands of fire control telemetry links. And what those links lacked in Manticoran-style sophistication they made up in numbers, because they could control the missiles assigned to them without break all the way to their targets.

Moriarty had only one real weakness, aside from the fact that if it had been detected, killing it would have been relatively simple. That weakness was the light-speed limitation on its telemetry. It simply couldn't provide real-time corrections as its missiles raced down range. On the other hand, neither could Honor's telemetry links. Aside from the superior seeking systems and more capable AIs aboard the Manticoran missiles, the accuracy playing field had just been leveled.

Jonathan_S wrote: Moriarty we know is a pure relay system and needs a central control node and ideally a couple of back up control modes, that are best installed in big nasty forts to protect them from things like Mistletoe. Though those forts are pretty deep in the system. Possibly in planetary orbit.

Weird Harold wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote: Moriarty we know is a pure relay system and needs a central control node and ideally a couple of back up control modes, that are best installed in big nasty forts to protect them from things like Mistletoe. Though those forts are pretty deep in the system. Possibly in planetary orbit.

We know no such thing:

At All Costs
Chapter Thirty-seven wrote:In Arthur orbit, the installation codenamed Moriarty came fully on-line for the first time. It wasn't a very huge installation. In fact, it was no larger than a heavy cruiser, and it had been transported in two prefabricated modules aboard a fleet supply ship, then assembled in place in less than forty-eight hours.

As warship tonnages went, four hundred thousand wasn't a lot . . . unless all of it was dedicated to fire control.


Moriarty was Shannon Foraker's system defense answer to the individual inferiority of the Republic's missile pods. The control station was a flat, light-drinking black, constructed of radar absorbent materials. It was almost impossible to detect, as long as it practiced strict emission-control discipline, and the Manticoran recon arrays had missed it entirely.

Now it reached out through the other innocent-looking orbital platforms which had been seeded about the system at the same time. Each of those platforms was, in effect, a less capable, simpler minded version of the RMN's own Keyholes. They formed a network, an expanding spray of tentacles, which gave Moriarty literally thousands of fire control telemetry links. And what those links lacked in Manticoran-style sophistication they made up in numbers, because they could control the missiles assigned to them without break all the way to their targets.

Moriarty had only one real weakness, aside from the fact that if it had been detected, killing it would have been relatively simple. That weakness was the light-speed limitation on its telemetry. It simply couldn't provide real-time corrections as its missiles raced down range. On the other hand, neither could Honor's telemetry links. Aside from the superior seeking systems and more capable AIs aboard the Manticoran missiles, the accuracy playing field had just been leveled.

Moriarty does use command relays similar to Keyhole I but they are not Moriarty; that code-name is for the command module which is a heavy cruiser sized hull without weapons (or drives?) filled with fire control systems.

The Arthur system only had one Moriarty, but later in the book they upgraded to three widely dispersed Moriarty command modules.

(edited to correct hull size)

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Is there a reason systems cannot be seeded with Forts, instead of Forts pretty much only being used exclusively for defending junctions? With the advent of Apollo and its long-legged missiles, it seems to me the time has come, actually making this feasible?

Forts are big, expensive, immobile structures. Fine for defending a relatively fix point in space, like WHJ or Terminus, or a gravity anchor, like a planet.

They're not really practical for defending a whole system.


<snip>

Theemile wrote:Forts are not Immobile, they just have exceedingly poor tactical speed, and no strategic maneuverabily.

Weird Harold wrote:

Theemile wrote:Forts are not Immobile, they just have exceedingly poor tactical speed, and no strategic maneuverabily.

In practical terms, they are "immobile." Wherever a fort is when battle is joined, is where it will be found when the battle is over -- plus or minus a few thousand kilometers.