Point of View: Wishes and Likes

Communication lag was a significant cause of the decline of the Roman Empire.
No good relying on a nodal force if it was destroyed two months ago, and the news hasn't got through yet.

Daryl wrote:Communication lag was a significant cause of the decline of the Roman Empire.
No good relying on a nodal force if it was destroyed two months ago, and the news hasn't got through yet.

That's a good point.

The advantage Manticore has is fairly rapid communications as compared to the SL. IIRC it takes Manticore 20-30 odd days to get a message from Spindle to Earth via MWJ while it takes the SL close to 60-90 days to go the same way through their channels. And with both Meyers and Mesa out it's going to get even longer.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:It's been stated many times that the SLN never has enough ships to put out all the fires. ...

Every time I come across this point, I ask myself why they had so many ships in the garage? Since they obviously could have used them. Surely there wasn't a shortage of warm bodies with so many systems.

Follow the money, Son.

The SLN -- the whole League bureaucracy, for that matter -- relys on fees and tribute from protectorates; there simply isn't enough money to activate the reserve or build new ships. The League can't simply raise taxes to man more ships, and Operation Lacoon is cutting into the League's income to the point they won't be able to pay the ships they do have in service (although Manticore destroying and capturing so many helps a bit. )

They don't need to raise taxes to crew the ships, they just need to stop the leadership from stealing all the money. "just"...

kzt wrote:They don't need to raise taxes to crew the ships, they just need to stop the leadership from stealing all the money. "just"...

Even in the League government, there's probably less money in waste, fraud, and abuse than you might think...

We have seen conversations, internal thoughts of characters and general information that would support the theory that FF was parceled out through the sector governors in a more or less nodal arrangement with the ability to either be dispatched or react on the local commanding officer's inititiave should they be needed.
It would seem that BF mostly had squadrons of SDs (with screen) assigned places though they probably were also dispatched to move around for various reaons including showing raw power.

All of this sounds very much like the 18th and 19th century British Navy. The RMN carries the image of the RN much better, as RMN was heavily invested in commerce protection with units dispatched to areas of responsibility and expected to use the Commander's best judgement in carrying out both mission orders and addressing issues as they came up.

SLN has (as implied in the story line) much more in the way of politics, particularly in BF, than doing anything actually protective. It's FF that is spread really thin with DD's though BC's scattered around as individuals and small units pissing on fires while BF swans around in massive blocks reeking of intimidation and force.

Hi Saber964,

Quite right.

Spindle is some 2 weeks[+?] from the wormhole and Sol is about 5 days from Beowulf.

Being 512 LY from Terra, it'd take a courier ~62-64 days to reach Manticore without any wormholes.

L

saber964 wrote:

Daryl wrote:Communication lag was a significant cause of the decline of the Roman Empire.
No good relying on a nodal force if it was destroyed two months ago, and the news hasn't got through yet.

That's a good point.

The advantage Manticore has is fairly rapid communications as compared to the SL. IIRC it takes Manticore 20-30 odd days to get a message from Spindle to Earth via MWJ while it takes the SL close to 60-90 days to go the same way through their channels. And with both Meyers and Mesa out it's going to get even longer.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Saber964,

Quite right.

Spindle is some 2 weeks[+?] from the wormhole and Sol is about 5 days from Beowulf.

Being 512 LY from Terra, it'd take a courier ~62-64 days to reach Manticore without any wormholes.

L

That's assuming ideal hyper conditions the entire trip - throw in some grav waves going the wrong way and the need to side track around them, and the extra days could pile up.

Theemile wrote:That's assuming ideal hyper conditions the entire trip - throw in some grav waves going the wrong way and the need to side track around them, and the extra days could pile up.

The Universe of Honor Harrington article at the end of the anthology More Than Honor says that: "By 1750 pd, however, sail tuners had been upgraded to a point which permitted the "grab factor" of a sail to be manipulated with far more sophistication than Dr. Warshawski's original technology had permitted. Indeed, it became possible to create a negative grab factor which, in effect, permitted a starship to sail directly "into the wind," although with a marginally greater danger of sail failure."

It doesn't say anything about them being slower when sailing "into the wind" just that it's marginally more dangerous (and I'd add maybe also somewhat higher component wear). Obviously prior to 1750 PD you would need to tack back and forth across the wave's "wind" so travel "upstream" would be substantially slower.

Now a rouge wave you had to drop to lower bands to avoid, or sidetrack far out of your way... That would certainly still add much delay compared to an ideal time voyage.

lyonheart wrote:Hi Saber964,

Quite right.

Spindle is some 2 weeks[+?] from the wormhole and Sol is about 5 days from Beowulf.

Being 512 LY from Terra, it'd take a courier ~62-64 days to reach Manticore without any wormholes.

L

saber964" quote="Daryl wrote:Communication lag was a significant cause of the decline of the Roman Empire.
No good relying on a nodal force if it was destroyed two months ago, and the news hasn't got through yet.

That's a good point.

The advantage Manticore has is fairly rapid communications as compared to the SL. IIRC it takes Manticore 20-30 odd days to get a message from Spindle to Earth via MWJ while it takes the SL close to 60-90 days to go the same way through their channels. And with both Meyers and Mesa out it's going to get even longer.

[/quote]


It's actually longer than your estimated time. I calculate it at roughly 75 days for a warship cruising at 80%, It would be even longer for a freighter to make the trip probably on the order of 150-175 days.