why the honorverse would be full of dead planets

imagine your democratic verge planet gets fucked by the OFS, a dictator put in a core Transstelare raping it, your wife raped and murdered your daughter raped and murdered your son murdered, and you had a 2 million ton freighter.

id load 1 million tons of water or sand, go to 1 light week from earth and accelerate and when my 1 million tons of water or sand are aimed at earth id let them go and hyper out

thats enough energy to melt the crust of earth kill all those bastards who murdered my family all those bastards who don t care shit that my family is murdered

and nobody is even going to know i killed earth

i ll hyper out 6 light days away from earth, my load of sand isn t going to hit for 8 days at 70% lightspeed

a planet can t move

1 million tons of sand moving at 70% lightspeed
nobody knows who throwed it
thats a sandblast

and earth really deserves it

repeat for every transtealars who rapes planets homeworld

Based within the storyline parameters and tech capabilities of large civilian bulk cargo freighters, a potential of such action is quite possible. However, it is very unlikely RFC will incorporate such in the coming book(s).

http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/272/1

Suicidal lunatics.
These are the sorts of threats that careful screening of starship pilots, multi-man crew requirements in critical duty slots, carefully crafted traffic requirements, etc., are designed to at least make difficult. Such precautions really aren't designed to stop mass attacks on planetary surfaces, but rather to intercept/prevent attacks by single suicide-run ships and the like.

...

The ultimate defense against a major naval attack launched directly against the planet -- that is, an Eridani Edict violation -- is not really to stop the attack at all, because the likelihood of being able to do that is… debatable. The ultimate defense is precisely that which the Eridani Edict stipulates, and what back in the Bad Old Days when everyone was stuck on Old Earth was referred to as "mutually assured destruction." What this means is that super elaborate defenses designed to stop deliberate, sophisticated attacks on the planets themselves are ultimately regarded as both unreliable and not cost effective. One attempts to defend the space around the planet, not the planet itself, against deliberate attack. One attempts to defend the planet itself against "lone-maniac" attacks… for which relatively light defenses will be effective (assuming the [lone]-maniac in question is [detected] in time) and heavy defenses are unnecessary.

I would also point out that typical Verge planets don't have freighters to their name to begin with.

Finally, for the life of me I cannot figure out everyone's fascination with regularly killing planets in the Honorverse. People's minds don't work that way in the future.

Slow down there Ian Douglas reader.


First of all, to get 1million tons of sand delivered for your sandblasting, takes a fairly hefty ship, and 4 million ton freighters are pointed out to be the tramps that are everywhere, not a 2 MT one. Now the base crew just to even get that freighter to arrive is going to be around 30+, so you have to get upwards of 25 other people as crazy as you. And to do that without somebody deciding you need to be stopped, and reports you themselves.

Next problem, a million tons of sand... not a typical cargo, so you're either going to have to change the payload, or figure out a way to get that much sand without it being obvious you're "Upto Something".

Third problem, even coming out of hyper that far out from any populated planet, eventually they're gonna figure out how/where your ship was, and then travel to a point where light would just be getting it. So you need to ensure your ship has absolutely zero identifying features that would bring even more pain down on your planet. If you care about your planet at all, you'll have to pay for, and keep that identity wiping absolutely black (we're talking the same level of black that covers the Mesa nanotech assassinations here). If you don't care what happens to your planet, you're back to problem 1, recruting without someone realizing you're utterly insane and calls OFS themselves.

Fourth problem, why are you holding Old Earth responsible, instead of targetting the OFS headquarter responsible for your planets sector? Or the planet headquarters of the trans-stellar corporation that's actually doing the planet rape in question... again, this is going to lead back to problem 1, because essentially you want to nuke Washington for a disagreement in Hicksville, Iran. Somebody's gonna turn you in, probably just for the hope of some form of reward.

Fifth, even Warnecke at his absolute most bloodthirsty never considered an attack like this, and his reason was almost as good as you're posing, and he lost his entire vest-pocket empire to the Sillies. He didn't exactly go around whacking multiple Silly planets in retaliation.

Even Masada isn't this psychotic, and Masada's the most bloodthirsty "we don't care about retaliation because our God is right, and you're all powerless infidels" crazy. If Masada isn't willing to do it, not to mention it's been nailed down that nobody's this crazy.... nope, this can't happen.

well the fascination is basicly a projection of our times to the future.

with so many suicide bombers today, so many terrorist / asymetrical attacks.

so theres the imagination about asymetrical attacks with the easy available tools of that future.

and the power of a simple tramp freighter is incredible.

then theres the fact as in this reality today that groups of people of the size needed to fly a trampfreighter, about 30 do exist that have been willing to do those acts.

and it wouldn t be a suicide run. as i said a tramp freighter pops out of hyper 1 light month from a system, accelerates and then pops into hyper. even if someone comes to investigate he wouldn t be identified.

even if identified theres no problem of the eridiani edict coming home to vengence on his planet, as postulated his planet is ruled by the ofs....

or maybe you register your freighter on mesa ? cool mesa gets the bullet for eridiani ...

the point is that although very few people would do so relative to the population theres so much population and so much evil being done.

so there should be dozens of groups of people motivated to do this kind of revenge. and it needs just a fraction to succeed in geting a freighter to do it . actually just 1 with target earth

and as earth for the target...
anybody smart enough to do this would be smart enough to see that its not a sector gouvernor thats the cause of evil, its the solarian league gouvernement... on earth

Not everyone is so fascinated.

I would just bet that those who are, play computer games.
Often.
Bet you a quarter?

HTM

Duckk wrote:http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Harrington/272/1

{snip - htm}

Finally, for the life of me I cannot figure out everyone's fascination with regularly killing planets in the Honorverse. People's minds don't work that way in the future.

Somtaaw wrote:Slow down there Ian Douglas reader.

In addition to all your salient points on why its unlikely you'd be willing or able to pull it off, having a relativistic field of sand flying through a solar system is going to get noticed - lots of high energy collisions with micrometeorites; etc. If it's taking 8 days to hit at 0.7c then that means the planet is getting lightspeed readings of impacts for over 2 days.

For that matter a freighter making drop that far out then burning it on an intercept course for the planet for a month is likely to get some interest and a naval or 'coast guard' ship dispatched to investigate. And the ship's acceleration signal is FTL so you've got plenty of time (if your system has good deep space grav sensors) to see his bizarre behavior. At minimum it's a sign that they might have had an engineering emergency that screwed up their hyper drive; otherwise they'd jump to get closer rather than making the long n-space run. So even if you didn't suspect a frac-c delivery you'd still send a hyper capable unit to investigate.

And given a couple day lead time any star system with a reasonable naval detachment, or significant ship traffic can use their combined wedges to attempt to shield the planet from such an attack. A wedge can happily eat a 0.7c sandblast - though you'd need a lot of them to fully cover the face of a planet in a static deployment. Far less if you can roughly match velocity with the attack and sweep your wedge through it.


Now if you wanted to sandcast some truly 3rd world planet that saw basically no space traffic, had no long range grav arrays, and effectively no SDF? Yeah, you could commit that pointless atrocity - assuming you could find a crew of equally sociopathic people who were still competent enough not to get picked up by somebody during the planning phases. But if you're trying to hit a system like Old Earth, or even a Frontier Fleet regional headquarters you've got a much worse chance of pulling it off at all.

Somtaaw wrote:Slow down there Ian Douglas reader.


First of all, to get 1million tons of sand delivered for your sandblasting, takes a fairly hefty ship, and 4 million ton freighters are pointed out to be the tramps that are everywhere, not a 2 MT one. Now the base crew just to even get that freighter to arrive is going to be around 30+, so you have to get upwards of 25 other people as crazy as you. And to do that without somebody deciding you need to be stopped, and reports you themselves.

You remember Moebius? The attack against the Trifecta Planetary HQ? To assemble some score of sufficiently desperate people, who are able to force a frighter crew to do their bidding is maybe improbable but not at all impossible.

Somtaaw wrote:Next problem, a million tons of sand... not a typical cargo, so you're either going to have to change the payload, or figure out a way to get that much sand without it being obvious you're "Upto Something".

Depends. Say, you live on a planet, which has sand of a very special quality, and which is necessary for the production of some very special glass - say, a special safety glass which is comparable to any other safety glass but weighs only a third of the next best contender ... But the glass fabrication units need (in addition to the sand) some kind of environment you find not in the same system as the sand ...

Somtaaw wrote:Third problem, even coming out of hyper that far out from any populated planet, eventually they're gonna figure out how/where your ship was, and then travel to a point where light would just be getting it. So you need to ensure your ship has absolutely zero identifying features that would bring even more pain down on your planet. If you care about your planet at all, you'll have to pay for, and keep that identity wiping absolutely black (we're talking the same level of black that covers the Mesa nanotech assassinations here). If you don't care what happens to your planet, you're back to problem 1, recruting without someone realizing you're utterly insane and calls OFS themselves.

If you can hijack a freighter, that is no problem ... especially not, if the freighter in question belongs to someone like ... Jessyk or so. With some luck, that ship is not on an ordinary trade route but, say, part of a very dark gray - maybe even black - op, and the owner can't make it public, that they have lost that vessel. Park the ship in the orbit of a gas giant far outside the hyperlimit of a star - a star preferable without any habitable planets - for some weeks, than attack ...

Somtaaw wrote:Fourth problem, why are you holding Old Earth responsible, instead of targetting the OFS headquarter responsible for your planets sector? Or the planet headquarters of the trans-stellar corporation that's actually doing the planet rape in question... again, this is going to lead back to problem 1, because essentially you want to nuke Washington for a disagreement in Hicksville, Iran. Somebody's gonna turn you in, probably just for the hope of some form of reward.

Because you don't want to cut an arm or a leg of your oppressor but the very heart? And the heart of the rotten, corrupt system your own world has to suffer under, is Old Earth. So, attack Earth ...

Remember, we're speaking not about some regular Star Nations like Manticore or Haven, but about some very desperate people with nothing - nothing at all - to loose ...

Somtaaw wrote:Fifth, even Warnecke at his absolute most bloodthirsty never considered an attack like this, and his reason was almost as good as you're posing, and he lost his entire vest-pocket empire to the Sillies. He didn't exactly go around whacking multiple Silly planets in retaliation.

Even Masada isn't this psychotic, and Masada's the most bloodthirsty "we don't care about retaliation because our God is right, and you're all powerless infidels" crazy. If Masada isn't willing to do it, not to mention it's been nailed down that nobody's this crazy.... nope, this can't happen.

Warneke wasn't that desperate, but even he nuked a city, if I remember correctly, during the negotiations with Honor. But Warneke was a gambler, and he believed the whole time that he could outmaneuver Honor. Pity for him, that he was wrong about that ...

Masada ... I don't know. Religious fanatics are the worst lot of all fanatics, and if the absolute hard core fanatics have to accept, that 99,999% of the rest of the Masadan people have themselve arranged with Manticore or (even worse from their point of view) Grayson - say, 100 or 150 years down the road - I would not bet against them to be able to do such a thing. Ok, they would most probably attack Grayson or Manticore, not Old Earth ... but that's the only difference.

svenhauke wrote:well the fascination is basicly a projection of our times to the future.

with so many suicide bombers today, so many terrorist / asymetrical attacks.

so theres the imagination about asymetrical attacks with the easy available tools of that future.

and the power of a simple tramp freighter is incredible.

then theres the fact as in this reality today that groups of people of the size needed to fly a trampfreighter, about 30 do exist that have been willing to do those acts.

and it wouldn t be a suicide run. as i said a tramp freighter pops out of hyper 1 light month from a system, accelerates and then pops into hyper. even if someone comes to investigate he wouldn t be identified.

even if identified theres no problem of the eridiani edict coming home to vengence on his planet, as postulated his planet is ruled by the ofs....

or maybe you register your freighter on mesa ? cool mesa gets the bullet for eridiani ...

the point is that although very few people would do so relative to the population theres so much population and so much evil being done.

so there should be dozens of groups of people motivated to do this kind of revenge. and it needs just a fraction to succeed in geting a freighter to do it . actually just 1 with target earth

and as earth for the target...
anybody smart enough to do this would be smart enough to see that its not a sector gouvernor thats the cause of evil, its the solarian league gouvernement... on earth

We get a very good look at the oppressed peoples of the Verge in Shadow of Victory. None of them even have a pot to piss in. They can't even afford to get arms - how do you expect them to get their hands on a freighter?

Eagleeye wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Slow down there Ian Douglas reader.


First of all, to get 1million tons of sand delivered for your sandblasting, takes a fairly hefty ship, and 4 million ton freighters are pointed out to be the tramps that are everywhere, not a 2 MT one. Now the base crew just to even get that freighter to arrive is going to be around 30+, so you have to get upwards of 25 other people as crazy as you. And to do that without somebody deciding you need to be stopped, and reports you themselves.

You remember Moebius? The attack against the Trifecta Planetary HQ? To assemble some score of sufficiently desperate people, who are able to force a frighter crew to do their bidding is maybe improbable but not at all impossible.

Yeah but 15 or 20 guys that are only wielding pulsers... it's not hard to point a rifle and pull a trigger.

Operating a spaceship seems to be far more complex, personally I think that in Honorverse it's a lot easier than people are making it out to be. At least in operating the software, that someone trained on Manticoran ships, can easily change to operating a Havenite, Solarian, Silesian, Andermani, or other ship without much trouble. [That's pretty solid, the two shuttles used to escape onto Hades, not to mention the short story about the archeology types commandering a ship to fight the pirate types, and they fired one missile before the pirates gave up]

But even with it potentially/probably being easy to shift from one nations ships to another, you still need several people trained in actual operation. You have to keep the ship running the several months, just to arrive a T-month out from a planet, plus the several days to both accelerate upto max possible merchy speed of 0.6c, then decelerate back down to 0.3c so you can hyper back out. Then the trip anywhere so you can get rid of the evidence without killing yourselves.


Can't see you getting 30 people that are all so far past the bend into psychosis, they make Masadan's look civilized and rational and being trained spacers to boot.

Eagleeye wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Next problem, a million tons of sand... not a typical cargo, so you're either going to have to change the payload, or figure out a way to get that much sand without it being obvious you're "Upto Something".

Depends. Say, you live on a planet, which has sand of a very special quality, and which is necessary for the production of some very special glass - say, a special safety glass which is comparable to any other safety glass but weighs only a third of the next best contender ... But the glass fabrication units need (in addition to the sand) some kind of environment you find not in the same system as the sand ...

Given the comments about crystoplast during Field of Dishonor, between Honor and Gerrick, anybody can make the crystoplast anywhere. No specialized materials required, and only a little in the way of hardware, so I'm guessing it's probably nanotech related adjusting simple carbon or silica into what amounts to transparent aluminum with the strenth of steel. Not something you'd ever ship outside your own system in raw form, you'd ship the industrial equipment to do it local.

Eagleeye wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Third problem, even coming out of hyper that far out from any populated planet, eventually they're gonna figure out how/where your ship was, and then travel to a point where light would just be getting it. So you need to ensure your ship has absolutely zero identifying features that would bring even more pain down on your planet. If you care about your planet at all, you'll have to pay for, and keep that identity wiping absolutely black (we're talking the same level of black that covers the Mesa nanotech assassinations here). If you don't care what happens to your planet, you're back to problem 1, recruting without someone realizing you're utterly insane and calls OFS themselves.

If you can hijack a freighter, that is no problem ... especially not, if the freighter in question belongs to someone like ... Jessyk or so. With some luck, that ship is not on an ordinary trade route but, say, part of a very dark gray - maybe even black - op, and the owner can't make it public, that they have lost that vessel. Park the ship in the orbit of a gas giant far outside the hyperlimit of a star - a star preferable without any habitable planets - for some weeks, than attack ...

Ok, I can grant you this. And your Moebius example holds a bit more weight, getting a bunch of fellow psychotics that are bright enough to point and shoot a rifle could possibly take a freighter. But now you're in the same role of pirates, trying to force a civilian merchy crew to do exactly what you want. You have to be smart enough, or trained enough to know if they're doing something 'stupid' specifically to draw official attention to your ship. And have at least one, preferably more trained astrogators so the civvy you're forcing to pilot doesn't give a course that 'forgets' to drop out far enough out.

So you still need the spacer trained people, that are just as psychotic and borderline genocidal, plus astrogators which undoubtedly are the most thoroughly screened to not train someone likely to snap and want to kill absolutely everything that moves.

Eagleeye wrote:

Somtaaw wrote:Fourth problem, why are you holding Old Earth responsible, instead of targetting the OFS headquarter responsible for your planets sector? Or the planet headquarters of the trans-stellar corporation that's actually doing the planet rape in question... again, this is going to lead back to problem 1, because essentially you want to nuke Washington for a disagreement in Hicksville, Iran. Somebody's gonna turn you in, probably just for the hope of some form of reward.

Because you don't want to cut an arm or a leg of your oppressor but the very heart? And the heart of the rotten, corrupt system your own world has to suffer under, is Old Earth. So, attack Earth ...

Remember, we're speaking not about some regular Star Nations like Manticore or Haven, but about some very desperate people with nothing - nothing at all - to loose ...

Your average system would barely know about Earth, most orders would be coming from your 'friendly, local transtellar', as seen in the numerous rebellions that Firebrand was stirring up. None of them were pissed off with Old Earth, they were furious with (insert the local transtellar here) because of (insert variety of reasons relevant to the planet in question).