Topic Actions

Topic Search

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 47 guests

Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Theemile   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 12:51 am

Theemile
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 5060
Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:50 pm
Location: All over the Place - Now Serving Dublin, OH

cthia wrote:Tlb, thanks for the amazing textev. I vaguely remember it after reading your post. I've only read most of the books once. I'm drooling at the proposition of a momentus second read through, which is calling me loudly.

Anyway, I had blinders on concerning Silesia. I thought most of the business Manty freighters had in Silesia was carrying trade for the League. Mostly because I thought the League would deny them access. So, in that respect, I called the market new to Manticore, since the war. I had no idea it was such bread and butter to the Manty economy. Albeit, tlb's explanation of the SL not being in need of what Manticore was selling makes lots of sense. I certainly understand the beef over Silesia now. Silesia is like the Wild West and the gold rush.

Is it fair to ask which of the two had their hooks in Silesia first? I really need to read House of Steel.


The answer is in the Manticore Ascendent series. The Andermani are much closer to Silesia prior to the wormhole, and had a much larger navy and merchant marine during those books. Manticore really didn't start it's ascendance as a power until the time of the wormhole.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:15 am

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

Theemile wrote:The answer is in the Manticore Ascendent series. The Andermani are much closer to Silesia prior to the wormhole, and had a much larger navy and merchant marine during those books. Manticore really didn't start it's ascendance as a power until the time of the wormhole.


So you're saying we should have a book series about the time Manticore was ascendant? :)
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by tlb   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:13 am

tlb
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3854
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:34 am

Theemile wrote:The answer is in the Manticore Ascendent series. The Andermani are much closer to Silesia prior to the wormhole, and had a much larger navy and merchant marine during those books. Manticore really didn't start it's ascendance as a power until the time of the wormhole.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So you're saying we should have a book series about the time Manticore was ascendant? :)

That is a strange way to put it, when you know that we do have such a series (unless you are making fun of a misspelling of Ascendant). From Wikipedia:
This series features Travis Uriah Long, an enlisted Navy man and later an officer, and is centered on the small Manticoran Navy of that time.

1. A Call to Duty (September 15, 2014) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn.
2. A Call to Arms (October 6, 2015) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope. (It is expanded from the short story of the same name originally published in the Beginnings anthology).
3. A Call to Vengeance (March 7, 2018) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn with Thomas Pope.
A fourth book is in the works.
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 9:00 am

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

tlb wrote:
Theemile wrote:The answer is in the Manticore Ascendent series. The Andermani are much closer to Silesia prior to the wormhole, and had a much larger navy and merchant marine during those books. Manticore really didn't start it's ascendance as a power until the time of the wormhole.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:So you're saying we should have a book series about the time Manticore was ascendant? :)

That is a strange way to put it, when you know that we do have such a series (unless you are making fun of a misspelling of Ascendant). From Wikipedia:

Possibly joking about the fact that Manticore is still ascending, and far from ascendant, during the Travis Long/Manticore Ascendant series.
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:44 pm

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

Jonathan_S wrote:Possibly joking about the fact that Manticore is still ascending, and far from ascendant, during the Travis Long/Manticore Ascendant series.


Yes, I was joking about the choice of words. I know the Manticore Ascendant series very well, it's how I got into the Honorverse in the first place (started in the wrong order). And can't wait for the fourth book.

But Jonathan is right: Manticore is hardly ascending at the point where the books are taking place. They've just decided to build impellers at home and they have exactly one locally-built ship (though with foreign impellers): HMS Casey CL-01. The Junction won't be discovered for another 30 years, so either this will be a very long series with a change of cast (no prolong, Travis will be too old), or Manticore actually starts ascending before the Junction.

Which would explain how they managed to revolutionise battlecruisers by 1585 and field a dozen battleships by the turn of the century... We've (or at least I have) been assuming that Manticore goes from having a Navy with two 200k-tonne BCs in service Navy to one fielding eleven 4-million-tonne dreadnoughts in the space of one T-century because of the Junction and for protecting that Junction, but we don't know for sure. Correlation is not causation.

And if it's not the Junction, then it could be the freight and trade market. The whole strategy for growing the domestic industry was to build whole ships, including impellers, in Manticore. Those couldn't be only warships, so they'd be building civilian ships.

[Though I've said in another thread it's possible the Junction is actually discovered earlier but its existence is kept in secret until the RMN did build the BCs and BBs]
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Brigade XO   » Sat Sep 19, 2020 5:06 pm

Brigade XO
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3114
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 12:31 pm
Location: KY

Marsh/Sidemore (the planet) is not quite on the way to Silesia as a direct route from the Gregor terminus of the Junction (which Manticore has the rights to by discovery and agreement with the Andemani. It is well away from Basilisk. But there are compelling reasons.

Manticore aquires the fleet base there after Honor tracks pirates under Warnecke (he being the head of a rebelion in one of the ConFed Systems who fled taking the warships from that system and setting up shop after subjugating the Republic of Sidemore. Marsh was otherwise off the beaten path for movement from the Gregor terminus directly to the Silesian Confedracy or between Gregor and Basilisk by routes though the Confed but with Honor having freed the system from Warnecke and restoring the government, she recommended (with Sidemore's concurance) the establishment of a RMN fleet station there. Sidemore had anticipated being drawn into the Andermani expansion eventualyl and wanted to remain indepenent even if it meant they were not a high traffic location.
This provided a friendly and motivated independent habitable planet system as a base very close to the Confed without (then) stepping on the ConFed's toes and ever so much closer to Silesia than either Gregor or Basilisk.
Since Manticore does have a large amount to trade in the Confed and with the independent systems (such as there are and where they are located) it gave them an operational base just outside Confed control. Friendly. Glad to have them there. Very happy to have them there as it meant that they would now be defended from pirates, didn't have to deal with any offical interest (always suspect) from any of the Confed governors and not just a place that could be taken over as the Andermani grew like an amoeba- slowly, but relentlessly, picking up systems that remained marginal and lacking serioius means to resist if it came to that.

That gave Manticore an operations base and fleet yard right on the edge of a place they needed to continualy run commerce protection. A place where deployed units could get to without having to go all the way back to either Gregor or Basilisk and without being dependent on the fluctuations in ownership or ongiong corruption and political mess that was the ConFed. They didn't take it from anybody. They have the best kind of treaty relationship with Sidemore- (from particularly Sidemore's perspective)- they bring in money, jobs, tech, traffic and make Sidemore a place that all the normal trouble that goes slezzing and raiding around in Silesia does absolutely not want to go. And as typical with Manticore, they are training Sidmorian Navy (SDF at least) on RMN ships. RMN are partners, not running the place and bringin their partners up to RMN standards and training.
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Jonathan_S   » Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:08 pm

Jonathan_S
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 8269
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:01 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Brigade XO wrote:This provided a friendly and motivated independent habitable planet system as a base very close to the Confed without (then) stepping on the ConFed's toes and ever so much closer to Silesia than either Gregor or Basilisk.

Which is especially nice because while Manticore was granted full sovereignty over the uninhabited Gregor-A where the terminus is - the Andermani seem a bit sensitive about having lots of RMN units randomly transiting through their corner of space (even though technically it's open space, not legally their territory). (A few especially when providing direct escort to a convoy or liner seem fine; but start running routine patrols based out of Gregor is likely to start raising hackles)

But with a fleet base at Sidemore Manticore could base destroyer squadrons to patrol that side of Silesia without needing to keep running those ships past Andi space to/from Gregor. Heck you never need to run them past Andi space because for rotating ships in and out you could easily use only Basilisk.

It'd be very inefficient to try to run actual patrols the length of Silesia from Basilisk; but it'd be no big deal for occasional one-way transit of that distance. So base and patrol that end of Silesia out of Sidemore; but minimize the RMN ships moving between Silesia and Gregor. More patrols with less potential friction with a neighboring power.
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Sun Sep 20, 2020 1:24 am

ThinksMarkedly
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 4105
Joined: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:39 am

Brigade XO wrote:That gave Manticore an operations base and fleet yard right on the edge of a place they needed to continualy run commerce protection. A place where deployed units could get to without having to go all the way back to either Gregor or Basilisk and without being dependent on the fluctuations in ownership or ongiong corruption and political mess that was the ConFed. They didn't take it from anybody. They have the best kind of treaty relationship with Sidemore- (from particularly Sidemore's perspective)- they bring in money, jobs, tech, traffic and make Sidemore a place that all the normal trouble that goes slezzing and raiding around in Silesia does absolutely not want to go. And as typical with Manticore, they are training Sidmorian Navy (SDF at least) on RMN ships. RMN are partners, not running the place and bringin their partners up to RMN standards and training.


Very much correct.

In UH (I think) when someone from the SL is looking at how Manticore has expanded its influence, they cite three systems that Manticore basically bootstrapped out of irrelevancy into regional powers: Idaho, Sidemore and Grayson. Idaho was because of the wormhole; Sidemore is exactly what you described above and Grayson we all know very well.

And that brings to the topic I wanted to post for a while: will Sidemore request admission into the Star Empire, becoming part of the Silesia Quadrant?
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by Brigade XO   » Sun Sep 20, 2020 7:32 pm

Brigade XO
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 3114
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2009 12:31 pm
Location: KY

I have been rereading the series in order. Just finished War of Honor. When Honor deploys to Sidmore with the fleet she is commanding she specificaly does so by going via Basilisk rather that Gregor-A.
Part of that is to not bring all those ships to the area that way where there is a higher level of chance that she will either encounter an IAN ship or Andermani (or other) merchant shipping to spread the word directly to Gregor-B if anybody is watching and not fan up the situation. Andermani merchants who are just heading back to the Empire from the SL are going to use Gregor as the shortest route even if they may be scheduled to make deliveries etc at Silesian systems that by the Empire's bordre. Part of the reason was to give her command command for a lot more training time with the sims before they were likey to run into any Imperial ships.

One of the sets of observations that we see is that Gregor-A is closer through hyperspace to Sidemore but at the same time it appears that might be the more common terminus to use if merchants are doing a lot of stops in Silesia and they will swing though whatever sets of systems and end up leaving Silesia and using Basilisk to get back to the Junction and then elsewhere. It would depend on where your customers or at least where your deliveries and pick-ups are. Routing and logistics. Unless you are able to carry all of your cargo and pick up more for the backhaul at a few locations close together on a regular basis, it is probably better to develope a route across a large number of systems and essentilay cross Silesia using both termini.
Remember, merchant shipping is generaly really big and carries a lot of cargo in the vast amount of space they have avaiable. You can several hundred thousand tons of goods or materials to a lot of places on a regular route. Filling a ship for a single destination is less likely.
And, yes, basing DDs through CAs and BC out of Sidmore with the fleet yard/repair facility makes a lot more sence than servicing them at either Gregor-A or Basilisk. Saves a lot of time just in transit and once you get there is more centraly located but "next" to Silesia rather than right in it's claimed territory.

And I am not sure Sidemore has anywhere close to the reasons to want to join the SEM as most systems since they appear satified to be back to independent (after the pirate invasion) and they have that nice Fleet base and a great relationship with Manticore. It is possible that could change if Manticore decided it needed to move the base somewhere inside their portion of the former Confederacy but Sidmore is actualy in a fairly good location, the base is already there and relations are fine.
Top
Re: Did the MBS corner the market on trade?
Post by kzt   » Thu Sep 24, 2020 10:48 pm

kzt
Fleet Admiral

Posts: 11337
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:18 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Gregor is an IAN naval base. The RMN can reasonably expect that the IAN can gain a very good understanding of the capabilities of every vessel that passes that terminus. And if they don't understand it they can start to research this. So if you don't want the IAN to see your semi-secret vessels you don't send them through Gregor.
Top

Return to Honorverse