I have great new idea about what to do with the SLN SDs

DeltaV wrote:It should be obvious to everyone by now that the survival of these wallers and the debate over their ultimate fate is quite simply the final and best trump card of the Alignment.

How so? The very debate that is taking place on these forums is secretly taking place among Elizabeth, Hamish, Honor and at all levels of the government. It has become the "Pokemon Go" of Manticore. Every day someone attempts to come up with a new plan for how to best utilize these ships.

This debate will, unfortunately, completely tie up all aspects of Manticore's government for years and will allow the Solarian Leauge to catch up in the tech race and begin building THOUSANDS of Apollo capable SD(P) that are also equipped with long-range grav lances that will completely overwhelm the Alliance.

This also has the effect of buying the Alignment plenty of breathing room to be able to advance their own tech to the point that they are mass producing Spider drive pod layers crewed by cloned zombie treecats that will bend the universe totally to their will.

All because of a few captured obsolete ships...

Actually, for the most part, the Manticorian establishment isn't arguing over these ships like we are.

They understood that the Dreadnaughts were outdated and obsolete, so they retired them all.

They understood that the older Manticorian Super Dreadnaught designs were outdated and obsolete, so they sold them off.

They attempted to upgrade the newest Manticorian Tube SD designs to fire MDMs during peacetime and reaffirmed the difficulty and cost to modify existing SDs.

The argument at that point in the story line was whether to upgrade the newer tube SDs, or whether it was necessary to replace the ships being retired with new SD(p)s. And we all know how that went. They fried the first and got a solution that almost cost as much as a new ship, and they declined to do the second for political reason until it was too late.

Manticore decided to continue to use their existing Tube SDs rather than revamp the captured Havenite SD(p)s. The time and effort to convert a Havenite SD(p) to RMN standard would take resources away from completing the Python lump of Invictus SD(p)s about to complete construction.

Now the decision is what to do with ~110 ships that are inferior to the Dreadnaughts trashed 7 years earlier; the only people arguing about what to do with them would be some junior foreign office bureaucrats who think they may be a bargaining carrot to give away.

munroburton wrote:

MuonNeutrino wrote:Can we have this as a sticky thread with a title something along the lines of "READ THIS before you post about the captured Solly SDs", please? This particular equine is so deceased it's starting to get compressed into oil.

They'll still post every now and then. The problem is those captured Solly ships are currently loose ends, unlike these Havenite SD(P)s Jonathan mentioned - they were handed back to the RoH sometime in MoH and that was pretty much the end of those discussions.

Until and unless a scene in the last book disposes of them, the poor horse is immortal, condemned to perpetual torture.

There's probably a real life parallel to be found with the German fleet after WW1. It sat in Scapa Flow whilst the Allies argued how to dispose of it until the German commander made that decision for them.

They are all ghost threads suffering from unexplained paranormal activities. Ghosts are invading peoples' minds causing them to create these threads. And ghosts keep them going. I'm beginning to suspect the ghosts of all of the dead Solarians that didn't get to surrender. If you go near any of the captured Solly junk with the proper Ghostbusters detection device, I'm sure you'll detect tons of ectoplasmic residue.

"They're back."

Darn ectoplasmic mysteria has even managed to get two books about the captured Solly junk on the Best Seller List...
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8203&start=62
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8203&start=83

DeltaV wrote:It should be obvious to everyone by now that the survival of these wallers and the debate over their ultimate fate is quite simply the final and best trump card of the Alignment.

How so? The very debate that is taking place on these forums is secretly taking place among Elizabeth, Hamish, Honor and at all levels of the government. It has become the "Pokemon Go" of Manticore. Every day someone attempts to come up with a new plan for how to best utilize these ships.

This debate will, unfortunately, completely tie up all aspects of Manticore's government for years and will allow the Solarian Leauge to catch up in the tech race and begin building THOUSANDS of Apollo capable SD(P) that are also equipped with long-range grav lances that will completely overwhelm the Alliance.

This also has the effect of buying the Alignment plenty of breathing room to be able to advance their own tech to the point that they are mass producing Spider drive pod layers crewed by cloned zombie treecats that will bend the universe totally to their will.

All because of a few captured obsolete ships...

Classic!

fallsfromtrees wrote:NO YOU DON'T

Before you decide to post your great new idea read all of the posts in the following chains

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8207
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7063
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5494

There are probably other topics I haven't found, but these constitute 1334 posts (to date - one of the threads is still active, so that count will probably still rise.

We really do NOT need to revisit this topic again (and again (and again)).

Aw, you're no fun!

It's simple. Move them to different planets and set up kitschy bed and breakfasts.

I think that they should disable all the important stuff like weapons and engines and use them as prison hulks. Or sell them to Verge planets that have just been liberated.

Here's what I would do with the captured SLN SD's.

1) Strip them of anything useful e.g. medical equipment and marine battle armor.

2) Save one as a Memorial to the deceased SLN spacers and the stupidity of the SL in general.

3) Scrap the rest.

The real reason the threads continue is it is Reginald Houseman's act of revenge against Honor Harrington. Not tying up the government of Manticore but tying up the intellectual community by finding ways to solve the SLN space junk issue.

WeirdlyWired wrote:

munroburton wrote:[snip]... The problem is those captured Solly ships are currently loose ends, unlike these Havenite SD(P)s Jonathan mentioned - they were handed back to the RoH sometime in MoH and that was pretty much the end of those discussions.[snip]...

Helas, chou, je m'en fache.

I'm sorry, WW, but your tag is driving me nuts. I don't know where you got it, but from my decades of French I know that this is nowhere near "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." More or less, what you have means "Alas, cabbage, I get angry about it." What I am guessing you want to say is probably best translated by "A vrai dire, ma cherie, je m'en fou" (NOT je m'en fiche, which is more like saying 'I don't give a sh*t").

Please, please change the tag before I have to spend any more time wondering why the French translated "Gone with the Wind" as "Autant en Emporte le Vent", which means, more or less, "Equally, the Wind Carries It Away".

I do have a great idea for all those smaller ships. BC CL and DD.

DD/CL go to new worlds as a welcome to the club.

BC go to member states perhaps with some DD/CL support.

There must be 100+DD and 50+ CL plus at least 25-50 BC. Add in the 2-300 Manty mothballed DD/CL and 200+ BC. Enough to provide every Talbot system and Silesian system with a small navy defense force. A Squadron of 8 Ships. 3 BC and 2 CL and 3 DD. Enough to fight off any pirates and train the system to be space faring. Even using Cataphract A missiles gives good range but still nothing that would bother a Manty CA.