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OFS vs SLN

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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by tlb   » Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:14 pm

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munroburton wrote:BUT at least the rotation allows for possibility of stagnant companies being sidelined and eventually abandoned. No forced rotation meant they inevitably ended up with too-big-to-fail entities such as Technodyne.

Technodyne is a very interesting company is this context, because we know that it is one of the few Solarian entities that is aware that Manticore has technology that it would like acquire. I assume this is because it was the clandestine supplier of military hardware to Haven, which gave their analysts a good idea of Haven's needs and the RMN's advantages. However it was also in bed with Manpower Incorporated and possibly the Alignment, therefore not a company to help the Solarian bureaucracy get either cleaner or wiser.
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by munroburton   » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:03 am

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tlb wrote:
munroburton wrote:BUT at least the rotation allows for possibility of stagnant companies being sidelined and eventually abandoned. No forced rotation meant they inevitably ended up with too-big-to-fail entities such as Technodyne.

Technodyne is a very interesting company is this context, because we know that it is one of the few Solarian entities that is aware that Manticore has technology that it would like acquire. I assume this is because it was the clandestine supplier of military hardware to Haven, which gave their analysts a good idea of Haven's needs and the RMN's advantages. However it was also in bed with Manpower Incorporated and possibly the Alignment, therefore not a company to help the Solarian bureaucracy get either cleaner or wiser.


Technodyne fits just fine. Two points: First, they failed. Oh, they might have scraped up a few new weapon systems which would have been dangerous in 1910, but were obsolescent by 1915, obsolete by 1920 and delivered in 1922.

Second, as you point out, they relied on secret assistance from the Alignment - which was intentionally limited in such a way to allow the RMN to destroy large amounts of the SLN, rather than actually pushing the bleeding edge of what was possible(eg. three-stage cataphract pods). Like Scotty said in AoV, it's possible to build multi-stage missiles with off-the-shelf components at the cost of them being very large missiles.

Mind you, I wonder whether such a package would even have been approved by the SLN. The Cataphracts might have gotten through only because they promised to keep current shipboard launchers "useful".
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by stewart   » Sun Jun 09, 2019 5:49 pm

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tlb wrote:
munroburton wrote:BUT at least the rotation allows for possibility of stagnant companies being sidelined and eventually abandoned. No forced rotation meant they inevitably ended up with too-big-to-fail entities such as Technodyne.

Technodyne is a very interesting company is this context, because we know that it is one of the few Solarian entities that is aware that Manticore has technology that it would like acquire. I assume this is because it was the clandestine supplier of military hardware to Haven, which gave their analysts a good idea of Haven's needs and the RMN's advantages. However it was also in bed with Manpower Incorporated and possibly the Alignment, therefore not a company to help the Solarian bureaucracy get either cleaner or wiser.



--------------------

Technodyne IS an "interesting" company.... Do not remember where I read it (textev, Pearls, Bar, earlier threads), but Technodyne of Yildun was located or operated at a 3-termini WH Junction, one of which went to Mesa vicinity. The Junction had no planets associated with the local stars, So -- all habitats are manufactured, the junctions allow multiple escape routes (if needed), and no official local politics needing inconvenient, plausible deniability.
And at least some of the Board are quartered on Mesa.

Sounds like a nice place for a visit by Eighth or Grand Fleet.....

-- Stewart
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by tlb   » Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:38 pm

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munroburton wrote:BUT at least the rotation allows for possibility of stagnant companies being sidelined and eventually abandoned. No forced rotation meant they inevitably ended up with too-big-to-fail entities such as Technodyne.

tlb wrote:Technodyne is a very interesting company is this context, because we know that it is one of the few Solarian entities that is aware that Manticore has technology that it would like acquire. I assume this is because it was the clandestine supplier of military hardware to Haven, which gave their analysts a good idea of Haven's needs and the RMN's advantages. However it was also in bed with Manpower Incorporated and possibly the Alignment, therefore not a company to help the Solarian bureaucracy get either cleaner or wiser.

stewart wrote:Technodyne IS an "interesting" company.... Do not remember where I read it (textev, Pearls, Bar, earlier threads), but Technodyne of Yildun was located or operated at a 3-termini WH Junction, one of which went to Mesa vicinity. The Junction had no planets associated with the local stars, So -- all habitats are manufactured, the junctions allow multiple escape routes (if needed), and no official local politics needing inconvenient, plausible deniability.
And at least some of the Board are quartered on Mesa.

Sounds like a nice place for a visit by Eighth or Grand Fleet.....

It might have planets, just no habitable ones; from Crown of Slaves, chapter 28:
TIY's reputation for shady dealings wasn't quite in the same league as Jessyk's or Manpower's, but it was fairly impressive in its own right. Yildun's location, roughly a hundred and eighty-three light-years from Earth, put the A1 star almost exactly on the boundary between the ultra-civilized core planets of the original League and the more recently settled systems whose attitude towards things commercial (and sometimes military) remained rather more bare-knuckled than the satisfied worlds nearer the League's heart. Yildun was far enough off the main sequence to have no habitable planets, but the system was rich in asteroids and contained the second oldest known wormhole junction in the galaxy. It had only three termini, including the central junction, yet that had been more than enough to turn it into a central hub for shipping. Industry had followed, exploiting the incredible natural wealth of the system's asteroids, and, over the centuries, TIY had become one of the SLN's primary builders, with an in-house R&D division which enjoyed an enviable prestige.
TIY was also one of the trans-stellars which had vociferously protested the technology embargo the League had slapped on the belligerents in the Manticore-Haven War. Which might have had just a bit to do with its habit of occasionally disposing of the odd modern warship under questionable circumstances. It was rumored that the Yildun yards routinely built five to ten percent more hulls than the SLN had ordered and either kept them off the books completely or else "lost" them in a maze of paperwork which eventually deposited them in some very strange places indeed. And it was a demonstrated fact—no rumor, this!—that dozens of warships TIY had purchased "for reclamation" had ended up in the hands of third and fourth-tier navies (and sometimes pirates).
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by cthia   » Mon Jun 10, 2019 7:10 am

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This is very interesting. How did Technodyne initially learn about the advanced tech being deployed in the Haven sector? When did they learn of it? I recall a conversation from the mouth of one of the Mandarins, I do believe—or it could have been out of the mouth of a CO on one of Buccaneer's missions—that recognized Technodyne had to have been developing MDMs for quite some time. Was Technodyne a MAlign founded company from the beginning, or were they later recruited for Alignment purposes? How was the information kept from other companies? If they were recruited then the point or points of contact is still there, waiting to be "interviewed."

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: OFS vs SLN
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Jun 10, 2019 11:26 pm

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cthia wrote:This is very interesting. How did Technodyne initially learn about the advanced tech being deployed in the Haven sector? When did they learn of it? I recall a conversation from the mouth of one of the Mandarins, I do believe—or it could have been out of the mouth of a CO on one of Buccaneer's missions—that recognized Technodyne had to have been developing MDMs for quite some time. Was Technodyne a MAlign founded company from the beginning, or were they later recruited for Alignment purposes? How was the information kept from other companies? If they were recruited then the point or points of contact is still there, waiting to be "interviewed."


Given what Technodyne has been and where it is located, it is quite possible that it is a separate front operation -now- of the Alignment and has been for a couple of hundred years. It could be as simple as most of the Board of the company is like the Board of Manpower. Most of them have no idea that they are being fed information and manipulated for all that time. Somebody seems to have provided enough basic information on dual drive missiles that are effectively the same as the Alignment Chateracts such that some part of the Technodyne R&D just whipped them into production.
There is also that long introspectivey by Filerta when he is looking at the shipping and timing of his new dual drive missile shipments and stuff is comming from Technodyne on paper but he can't work out it is possible based on the rest of the information he has noticed.

Industrial espionage doesn't just work one way. With Technodyne being able to insert stuff into the weapons and equipment mix of the SLN (and any number of other Star Nations or transtellars) there is also a presumed flow of ideas and information from their customers which would feed directly to the Alignment.
So somebody had an intersting thought....and SLN sent it and what they came up with over to Technodyne to compleat research......and the answer comes back as either it doesn't work or what is produced is so abysmaly bad -same idea just screwed up on purpose- that SLN or other parties drop it even though it ends up leading to an Alignment product.

We don't know. It would take Manticore and probably Haven grabbing the entire Yulden system and the Technodyne operations/fabrications/records to find out. The GA is a bit busy now, that is going to have to wait.
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by phillies   » Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:07 pm

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schoeffelk wrote:Consider the OFS as the US Department of Homeland Security. Nice title but no tanks, aircraft, or ships. Pretty but overall powerless. If a large threat is identified, they call the big boys and girls. OFS/FF is there to deal with very, very little fish. Pirates, systems that don't want to be abused by the SL masters.

Each 'little' Frontier Fleet command wanted to keep quiet and keep their position and power. If they identify a 'problem' and bring it to a higher level, they are out of their job/canned.

The SL had observers throughout the minor powers. Some of them were 'news reporters'. Those observers sent reports back that were ignored or downplayed. But nothing can be as good and great as the SLN.

The FF is the local beat cop, competent but underpowered when the big guns, or more modern warships, come to visit. Add in bigotry and incompetence, against a foe that has been tested in over 40 years of conflict. The end result is inevitable.

Think Italy and Ethiopia or Japan and China in WWII.


Japan and China? Like the Battle of Taierzhuang?
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by phillies   » Tue Jun 11, 2019 3:10 pm

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With respect to the discussion upstream, I seem to recall that Frontier Fleet had battlecruisers but not dreadnaughts.
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by Armed Neo-Bob   » Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:11 am

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cthia wrote:This is very interesting. How did Technodyne initially learn about the advanced tech being deployed in the Haven sector? When did they learn of it? I recall a conversation from the mouth of one of the Mandarins, I do believe—or it could have been out of the mouth of a CO on one of Buccaneer's missions—that recognized Technodyne had to have been developing MDMs for quite some time. Was Technodyne a MAlign founded company from the beginning, or were they later recruited for Alignment purposes? How was the information kept from other companies? If they were recruited then the point or points of contact is still there, waiting to be "interviewed."


When I am bored, I search the forums under various search terms for posts by the author.

In a post related to Solarian intelligence and why it wasn't totally stupid for the SLN to be as ignorant as they ended up, RFC posted on this forum that the SLN depended on Haven for its pre-war intel assessment of Manticoran capabilities; that the SLN was complicit in Haven's prewar military build-up; that the Sollies assisted in the designs of the second generation warships including the Mars and Warlord classes; and that Technodyne was only one of many Solarian corporations involved.

The gist, iirc, was that the SLN thought no one would put more resources into gathering intel on Manticore than Haven, and that the Solarian military contractors (all, of course, in violation of the embargo) would keep them apprised of anything important.

As was shown several times in text (SftS and later) the officers of the SLN were frequently related to the people in the transtellars.

ymmv. regards, Rob
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Re: OFS vs SLN
Post by Armed Neo-Bob   » Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:21 am

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stewart wrote:Technodyne IS an "interesting" company.... Do not remember where I read it (textev, Pearls, Bar, earlier threads), but Technodyne of Yildun was located or operated at a 3-termini WH Junction, one of which went to Mesa vicinity. The Junction had no planets associated with the local stars, So -- all habitats are manufactured, the junctions allow multiple escape routes (if needed), and no official local politics needing inconvenient, plausible deniability.
And at least some of the Board are quartered on Mesa.

Sounds like a nice place for a visit by Eighth or Grand Fleet.....

-- Stewart


I don't recall where I read it either, but the reason no fleet activity is going to occur in Yildun is that they CANNOT evacuate the civilians. The people there are not SLN--they are civilian contractors. Manticore doesn't have the passenger lift to do it; and going into the system with a fleet (invasion) without a means of evacuating the civilians is an EE violation.

istr the issue came up back when people also wanted Manticore to invade Earth in response to Spindle, when MoH was published; and rfc shot it down.

Rob
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