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Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?

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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:53 am

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runsforcelery wrote:There's no way anyone like the Detweilers would be foolish enough — or desperate enough, certainly short of their own discovery and imminent defeat/demise — to try anything like it. Adolf Hitler may have asked "Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians," but the Detweilers are smart enough to have learned from his example.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's not a path to victory. That's death throes.

Cthia is proposing these options as paths to victory. I don't see any of them working that way. If they try any of those things, all the other predictions RFC made in the same post will come true: the entire Galaxy will band together against them. So if they try this when they're about to be defeated, that only ensures they do get defeated without any possibility of a dialogue.

They may devastate a few planets while going down, but down they go.

I quite agree; my chagrin is due to arguing that RFC was not predisposed to write such a scene, even as part of death throes.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:34 am

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tlb wrote:Sorry, Daryl, I am not the only person that does not read thoroughly; because Cthia highlighted the loophole in what RFC has said. See below:
runsforcelery wrote:There's no way anyone like the Detweilers would be foolish enough — or desperate enough, certainly short of their own discovery and imminent defeat/demise — to try anything like it. Adolf Hitler may have asked "Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians," but the Detweilers are smart enough to have learned from his example.


ThinksMarkedly wrote:That's not a path to victory. That's death throes.

Cthia is proposing these options as paths to victory. I don't see any of them working that way. If they try any of those things, all the other predictions RFC made in the same post will come true: the entire Galaxy will band together against them. So if they try this when they're about to be defeated, that only ensures they do get defeated without any possibility of a dialogue.

They may devastate a few planets while going down, but down they go.

Not necessarily. Galton was found by attacking strategic locations that likely contained information about the MA. Then all of that captured data was taken to, Torch, I believe? Had the Onion ordered a preemptive strike against Torch to destroy a lot of the population and specifically destroy warships which contained the captured data, then the MA could have saved Galton. In addition to showcasing their unprecedented technology and frightening the populations of the axis powers.

IOW, the MA could use KEW strikes to bury/destroy incriminating data against them. Simply Houdini, of a sort, on a much more massive scale.

Besides, the author is up against fully destroying a hidden, cancerous entity that has existed for centuries. How practical is that?

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Sun Dec 19, 2021 1:11 pm

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cthia wrote:Not necessarily. Galton was found by attacking strategic locations that likely contained information about the MA. Then all of that captured data was taken to, Torch, I believe? Had the Onion ordered a preemptive strike against Torch to destroy a lot of the population and specifically destroy warships which contained the captured data, then the MA could have saved Galton. In addition to showcasing their unprecedented technology and frightening the populations of the axis powers.

IOW, the MA could use KEW strikes to bury/destroy incriminating data against them. Simply Houdini, of a sort, on a much more massive scale.

Besides, the author is up against fully destroying a hidden, cancerous entity that has existed for centuries. How practical is that?

First of all, the Malign did not know that knowledge had been gathered that could lead to Galton and so did not know that there was a specific target to attack. That should continue to be true with any later information, especially as their network of agents is rolled up. So they would be striking blind.

More importantly, you talk as though this cancerous entity is not fully the creation of the author and the only impediment to destroying it is in trying to make that destruction credible and enjoyable to readers.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Sun Dec 19, 2021 1:27 pm

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:Not necessarily. Galton was found by attacking strategic locations that likely contained information about the MA. Then all of that captured data was taken to, Torch, I believe? Had the Onion ordered a preemptive strike against Torch to destroy a lot of the population and specifically destroy warships which contained the captured data, then the MA could have saved Galton. In addition to showcasing their unprecedented technology and frightening the populations of the axis powers.

IOW, the MA could use KEW strikes to bury/destroy incriminating data against them. Simply Houdini, of a sort, on a much more massive scale.

Besides, the author is up against fully destroying a hidden, cancerous entity that has existed for centuries. How practical is that?

First of all, the Malign did not know that knowledge had been gathered that could lead to Galton and so did not know that there was a specific target to attack. That should continue to be true with any later information, especially as their network of agents is rolled up. So they would be striking blind.

More importantly, you talk as though this cancerous entity is not fully the creation of the author and the only impediment to destroying it is in trying to make that destruction credible and enjoyable to readers.

They did know. Detweiler even discussed the possibility with Galton. And he apologized because it was their actions which had led to the breech. It was the first time that I recall a Detweiler admitted to being human. The MA didn't know for certain which system had been compromised, but they knew either Galton or Darius was going to be attacked.

In the future, Audrey O'Hanrahan will warn them. Did anyone notice that O'Hanrahan was allowed to communicate with the outside world while she was aboard Imperator? Am I wrong about that?

"Make that destruction creditable and enjoyable to readers?"

You mean like the destruction of the SL?

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Dec 20, 2021 12:20 am

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cthia wrote:They did know. Detweiler even discussed the possibility with Galton. And he apologized because it was their actions which had led to the breech. It was the first time that I recall a Detweiler admitted to being human. The MA didn't know for certain which system had been compromised, but they knew either Galton or Darius was going to be attacked.


No, sorry, I disagree with you.

They didn't know that sufficient knowledge about Galton's location in the Galaxy had been gathered. Therefore, they didn't know the timeline for Honor's visit. What they knew was that they had shown that an Alignment / The Other Guys did exist and was manipulating multiple polities.

Do note that they had turned Galton into a cut out more than a century ago. They definitely did know no one hostile to them knew its location at that point. So the Alamo Contingency's existence is not proof that the location had been compromised.

In any case, I am not proposing either that the Detweilers may be given a chance to lash out. Just like Galton, the GF may show up unannounced without so much bothering to phone in advance to see if they were home. If that happens and they aren't prepared to repel that offensive yet, they will go down without being able to send however many LDs may be operational to cause havoc.

If they do manage to repel the offensive but are now faced with an industry left in tatters in their system and the GF returning within 2 months, they could decide to lash out.

Which is why I think the former will happen.

In the future, Audrey O'Hanrahan will warn them. Did anyone notice that O'Hanrahan was allowed to communicate with the outside world while she was aboard Imperator? Am I wrong about that?


Her communication was monitored (like everyone's aboard a military ship under an OpSec plan is). It was made quite clear to her that she would not be allowed to divulge any military secrets and the way to ensure that was to simpl read her material before it was sent via courier.

It's possible of course she could have coded phrases that someone would pick up on. But this won't happen, for several reasons:

First, I don't think she would warn anyone, if she were brought aboard for a new offensive. If that were to happen, she'd have been made privy to the fact that the evil Alignment was not completely based on Galton, so the evil-doers of the Yawata and Beowulf Strikes were the ones being sought out. She could would not take the chance of tipping those guys off. Even if she thinks it's not her Alignment, she can't take the chance that the malignant one hasn't infiltrated her team and knows her codewords.

Second, there's the comm delay. If she's aboard Imperator, she's likely depending on RMN's own courier service to send messages out. If they're out training on somewhere unseen, those messages will take (say) a week to get to Manticore, then a week from Beowulf to Sol. Then you add another week from Sol to Warner and a week from Mannerheim to Darius. The GF may arrive before her message does and, even if it doesn't, what can they do with the limited time left? Which is also why I think she'd reason that there's no point in trying to send a message, in case she's wrong. And in case she's right about her Alignment, she would not want to compromise her position and her ability to intercede on their behalf because she could get caught.

Third, there's a simple expedient to avoid a leak: full comms blackout, except for high-level military matters. Once you are read in, you get no comms out under the OpSec plan. No lowly enlisted, no chief petty officer, no ensign, and no mere captain can send an unauthorised message off-site, and definitely not a civilian who is not even a citizen of the polities represented there. How do you avoid the fact that tens of thousands of navy personnel suddenly became a black hole? Before you institute the blackout, before you read anyone in, and possibly even before the ships are gathered for the final joint training, you start inserting multi-day delays into the comm queues, on top of what usually takes. That way, when the blackout kicks in, there are still undelivered messages in the queue, so the Navies can slowly parcel them out to the destinations.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by tlb   » Mon Dec 20, 2021 9:04 am

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cthia wrote:They did know. Detweiler even discussed the possibility with Galton. And he apologized because it was their actions which had led to the breech. It was the first time that I recall a Detweiler admitted to being human. The MA didn't know for certain which system had been compromised, but they knew either Galton or Darius was going to be attacked.

In the future, Audrey O'Hanrahan will warn them. Did anyone notice that O'Hanrahan was allowed to communicate with the outside world while she was aboard Imperator? Am I wrong about that?

"Make that destruction creditable and enjoyable to readers?"

You mean like the destruction of the SL?

I believe that the apology was over the possibility of a breech, not the hard knowledge that one had occurred.

By the time Audrey O'Hanrahan knows anything, the data has already been gathered, analyzed, disseminated and formulated into battle plans. Even then she did not know whether Galton or Darius was to be attacked: not the sort of findings that can be used to hide secrets with a surgical attack.

I misspoke when I said the author wrote for the readers (although I am sure he intends for the result to be successful); his obligation is to himself as an entire thread discussed and you heard directly from him. The point was if he wanted to finish off the Malign in one thin book, then he would have no problem doing so. Some of us might be disappointed with the result, but that is up to him.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:57 am

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tlb wrote:
cthia wrote:They did know. Detweiler even discussed the possibility with Galton. And he apologized because it was their actions which had led to the breech. It was the first time that I recall a Detweiler admitted to being human. The MA didn't know for certain which system had been compromised, but they knew either Galton or Darius was going to be attacked.

In the future, Audrey O'Hanrahan will warn them. Did anyone notice that O'Hanrahan was allowed to communicate with the outside world while she was aboard Imperator? Am I wrong about that?

"Make that destruction creditable and enjoyable to readers?"

You mean like the destruction of the SL?

I believe that the apology was over the possibility of a breech, not the hard knowledge that one had occurred.

By the time Audrey O'Hanrahan knows anything, the data has already been gathered, analyzed, disseminated and formulated into battle plans. Even then she did not know whether Galton or Darius was to be attacked: not the sort of findings that can be used to hide secrets with a surgical attack.

I misspoke when I said the author wrote for the readers (although I am sure he intends for the result to be successful); his obligation is to himself as an entire thread discussed and you heard directly from him. The point was if he wanted to finish off the Malign in one thin book, then he would have no problem doing so. Some of us might be disappointed with the result, but that is up to him.

All true. The MA was not clear about the target. However, in the future it should be clear that the target is Darius.

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:01 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:Third, there's a simple expedient to avoid a leak: full comms blackout, except for high-level military matters. Once you are read in, you get no comms out under the OpSec plan. No lowly enlisted, no chief petty officer, no ensign, and no mere captain can send an unauthorised message off-site, and definitely not a civilian who is not even a citizen of the polities represented there. How do you avoid the fact that tens of thousands of navy personnel suddenly became a black hole? Before you institute the blackout, before you read anyone in, and possibly even before the ships are gathered for the final joint training, you start inserting multi-day delays into the comm queues, on top of what usually takes. That way, when the blackout kicks in, there are still undelivered messages in the queue, so the Navies can slowly parcel them out to the destinations.


That would be a fitting time to use a spy and or compulsion. Simply use Honor's own tactic of sending one ping with the ship's nodes to an awaiting ship in stealth who will then relay that signal to a Streak Boat. Darius will be ready.

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: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:25 pm

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cthia wrote:That would be a fitting time to use a spy and or compulsion. Simply use Honor's own tactic of sending one ping with the ship's nodes to an awaiting ship in stealth who will then relay that signal to a Streak Boat. Darius will be ready.


Highly unlikely that someone could order that alone. It's not a macro that would have been prepared ahead of time, like the GOTH launch that Filareta's chief of staff used. Instead, this person under compulsion would need to convince a lot of people to do it. Someone might wonder why.

This also implies there's a stealth ship following the fleet to its hidden exercise location. If anyone could do that, it wouldn't be a secret. Sure, they do a lot of exercises in Trevor's Star, but I'd expect the final training once the majority of the fleet is told why is done after there's no one around for light-hours.

A stealth ship constantly shadowing a fleet like that is itself an OpSec risk. It can be accidentally discovered. The longer it is on-station, and the more of those there are because there are multiple fleets, the higher it is.
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Re: Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?
Post by cthia   » Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:19 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
cthia wrote:That would be a fitting time to use a spy and or compulsion. Simply use Honor's own tactic of sending one ping with the ship's nodes to an awaiting ship in stealth who will then relay that signal to a Streak Boat. Darius will be ready.


Highly unlikely that someone could order that alone. It's not a macro that would have been prepared ahead of time, like the GOTH launch that Filareta's chief of staff used. Instead, this person under compulsion would need to convince a lot of people to do it. Someone might wonder why.

This also implies there's a stealth ship following the fleet to its hidden exercise location. If anyone could do that, it wouldn't be a secret. Sure, they do a lot of exercises in Trevor's Star, but I'd expect the final training once the majority of the fleet is told why is done after there's no one around for light-hours.

A stealth ship constantly shadowing a fleet like that is itself an OpSec risk. It can be accidentally discovered. The longer it is on-station, and the more of those there are because there are multiple fleets, the higher it is.


It could be. The program can be preloaded onto a minicomp. Compulsion can get someone to make like Harkness and insert it into a terminal. And these are Alphas. I, personally, expect Alphas to have programming skills that are superior to even Anton's and Ruth's. Alphas have perfect memory.

Can you imagine a hacker with perfect memory?

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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