Pawn - Q7 ... Checkmate?

cthia wrote:Imagine the MA slinking into a system dropping off Spiders and all of their lastest toys. At home in their own system, a navy isn't expecting anything. It wasn't a walk in the park for Honor with her mutt of a fleet, and she readied herself and tried to imagine the worse. Imagine an unsuspecting system all snuggled in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

This makes me recall some of my own musings when reading TEiF. Sure, the GA may wreak havoc in an MA system. The MA may not be able to stop a combined fleet of the top tier navies. But neither can those systems stop the LDs. So, what, mutual assured destruction, a stalemate?

Not really a stalemate (assuming the GA knows of Darius), because the LDs will not be able to return to base (since there will be no base remaining) and so have no ability to reload with spider-drive ammo. Perhaps someone like Mannerheim will take them in, but will not be able to refit them. This can be prolonged somewhat with cargo ships of reloads, but they too will run out.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Imagine the MA slinking into a system dropping off Spiders and all of their lastest toys. At home in their own system, a navy isn't expecting anything. It wasn't a walk in the park for Honor with her mutt of a fleet, and she readied herself and tried to imagine the worse. Imagine an unsuspecting system all snuggled in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

This makes me recall some of my own musings when reading TEiF. Sure, the GA may wreak havoc in an MA system. The MA may not be able to stop a combined fleet of the top tier navies. But neither can those systems stop the LDs. So, what, mutual assured destruction, a stalemate?

Not really a stalemate (assuming the GA knows of Darius), because the LDs will not be able to return to base (since there will be no base remaining) and so have no ability to reload with spider-drive ammo. Perhaps someone like Mannerheim will take them in, but will not be able to refit them. This can be prolonged somewhat with cargo ships of reloads, but they too will run out.

Complicated position. No room for error.

If the scenario is "stabbing at thee from hell's heart" then a bit of tit-for-tat is in order. And the MA will level infrastructure AND planets. Which will also orphan the GA, until they are adopted as well. Stalemate.

But if the GA doesn't know the location of Darius.
Check and Mate.

cthia wrote:Imagine the MA slinking into a system dropping off Spiders and all of their lastest toys. At home in their own system, a navy isn't expecting anything. It wasn't a walk in the park for Honor with her mutt of a fleet, and she readied herself and tried to imagine the worse. Imagine an unsuspecting system all snuggled in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

This makes me recall some of my own musings when reading TEiF. Sure, the GA may wreak havoc in an MA system. The MA may not be able to stop a combined fleet of the top tier navies. But neither can those systems stop the LDs. So, what, mutual assured destruction, a stalemate?

tlb wrote:Not really a stalemate (assuming the GA knows of Darius), because the LDs will not be able to return to base (since there will be no base remaining) and so have no ability to reload with spider-drive ammo. Perhaps someone like Mannerheim will take them in, but will not be able to refit them. This can be prolonged somewhat with cargo ships of reloads, but they too will run out.

cthia wrote:Complicated position. No room for error.

If the scenario is "stabbing at thee from hell's heart" then a bit of tit-for-tat is in order. And the MA will level infrastructure AND planets. Which will also orphan the GA, until they are adopted as well. Stalemate.

But if the GA doesn't know the location of Darius.
Check and Mate.

I grant that once the LD's are ready and before the GA knows the way to Darius, the GA could be in a tough position. But we both know that RFC is not going to bust worlds. So we will just have to wait and see what Weber and Flint have as an answer to your dilemma.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Imagine the MA slinking into a system dropping off Spiders and all of their lastest toys. At home in their own system, a navy isn't expecting anything. It wasn't a walk in the park for Honor with her mutt of a fleet, and she readied herself and tried to imagine the worse. Imagine an unsuspecting system all snuggled in their beds with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

This makes me recall some of my own musings when reading TEiF. Sure, the GA may wreak havoc in an MA system. The MA may not be able to stop a combined fleet of the top tier navies. But neither can those systems stop the LDs. So, what, mutual assured destruction, a stalemate?

tlb wrote:Not really a stalemate (assuming the GA knows of Darius), because the LDs will not be able to return to base (since there will be no base remaining) and so have no ability to reload with spider-drive ammo. Perhaps someone like Mannerheim will take them in, but will not be able to refit them. This can be prolonged somewhat with cargo ships of reloads, but they too will run out.

cthia wrote:Complicated position. No room for error.

If the scenario is "stabbing at thee from hell's heart" then a bit of tit-for-tat is in order. And the MA will level infrastructure AND planets. Which will also orphan the GA, until they are adopted as well. Stalemate.

But if the GA doesn't know the location of Darius.
Check and Mate.

I grant that once the LD's are ready and before the GA knows the way to Darius, the GA could be in a tough position. But we both know that RFC is not going to bust worlds. So we will just have to wait and see what Weber and Flint have as an answer to your dilemma.

Agreed, but kewing a planet into submission, or back to the Ice Age - which is simply a cataclysmic event of Refugian proportions - isn't exactly the same thing as planet busting.

tlb wrote:I grant that once the LD's are ready and before the GA knows the way to Darius, the GA could be in a tough position. But we both know that RFC is not going to bust worlds. So we will just have to wait and see what Weber and Flint have as an answer to your dilemma.

cthia wrote:Agreed, but kewing a planet into submission, or back to the Ice Age - which is simply a cataclysmic event of Refugian proportions - isn't exactly the same thing as planet busting.

I will believe that RFC accepts that distinction (and would write something using what in the good old days of the Solarian League would be called an Eridani Edict Violation) when I read it.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:I grant that once the LD's are ready and before the GA knows the way to Darius, the GA could be in a tough position. But we both know that RFC is not going to bust worlds. So we will just have to wait and see what Weber and Flint have as an answer to your dilemma.

cthia wrote:Agreed, but kewing a planet into submission, or back to the Ice Age - which is simply a cataclysmic event of Refugian proportions - isn't exactly the same thing as planet busting.

I will believe that RFC accepts that distinction (and would write something using what in the good old days of the Solarian League would be called an Eridani Edict Violation) when I read it.

Indeed.

It should be easy for the LDs to destroy the Sol system, but not the entire SL.

The bad news for the MBS is that it is comprised of only three planets.

3 LDs = 1 entire system.

Grayson? 1 LD = 1 entire system.

That is a lot of bang for your buck.

Plus, in Grayson's case, the MA can get extra nasty by freeing the prisoners of Masada. And giving those nut jobs dominion over the system.

cthia wrote:It is easy to destroy a planet's entire navy.
Destroy a CLAC and orphan its LACs.
Destroy a planet and orphan its navy.

.

The Lenny Detweilers are the source of a severe outbreak of Arachnophobia in the entire Galaxy.

Perhaps now one can begin to appreciate the true value of the Soul of Steel.

It reminds me of Star Trek's The Voyage Home when the Enterprise had to go back in time to save the Humpback Whales that the Sol System had thrown under the bus.

cthia wrote:The bad news for the MBS is that it is comprised of only three planets.

3 LDs = 1 entire system.

Grayson? 1 LD = 1 entire system.

That is a lot of bang for your buck.

Plus, in Grayson's case, the MA can get extra nasty by freeing the prisoners of Masada. And giving those nut jobs dominion over the system.

I highly doubt the single LD can destroy the entire system, so 3 won't cut for the MBS either. It took a dozen Sharks per system component and those are what, a third the size of an LD? Plus they also had scouts in the form of Ghosts and torpedoes and pods launched by freighters. All they managed was to destroy one station per planet. So I would say half a dozen per planet at a minimum if the objective is to totally destroy the space infrastructure.

I have no doubt that they can do a lot of damage if they chose to. But it's not victory. The GA alone has a dozen or more industrial centres that must each be attacked, and then you add the SL and other minor supporting powers like Torch, Erewhon, Smoking Frog (Maya) and other aligned ex-SL powers. Any of those is somewhere where the now-homeless fleet can come and refit. It might not be speedy, but it's doable. The LD fleet has a single port of call, in Darius, unless the RF reveals itself.

And then there's Bolthole. That can't be attacked from stealth because of the huge dust clouds surrounding it. The shipyards there could fit the entire Grand Fleet at its height with room to spare.

As for the Masadans, that might be spiteful but in the end it's more work than it's worth it, as the Peeps found out. The Masadans have zero experience in running a navy or an occupation for that matter. And unlike the PNiE, they also have no discipline to take orders from those who do. What's more, they've been under occupation for 20 years now: how much have they changed?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:The bad news for the MBS is that it is comprised of only three planets.

3 LDs = 1 entire system.

Grayson? 1 LD = 1 entire system.

That is a lot of bang for your buck.

Plus, in Grayson's case, the MA can get extra nasty by freeing the prisoners of Masada. And giving those nut jobs dominion over the system.

I highly doubt the single LD can destroy the entire system, so 3 won't cut for the MBS either. It took a dozen Sharks per system component and those are what, a third the size of an LD? Plus they also had scouts in the form of Ghosts and torpedoes and pods launched by freighters. All they managed was to destroy one station per planet. So I would say half a dozen per planet at a minimum if the objective is to totally destroy the space infrastructure.

I have no doubt that they can do a lot of damage if they chose to. But it's not victory. The GA alone has a dozen or more industrial centres that must each be attacked, and then you add the SL and other minor supporting powers like Torch, Erewhon, Smoking Frog (Maya) and other aligned ex-SL powers. Any of those is somewhere where the now-homeless fleet can come and refit. It might not be speedy, but it's doable. The LD fleet has a single port of call, in Darius, unless the RF reveals itself.

And then there's Bolthole. That can't be attacked from stealth because of the huge dust clouds surrounding it. The shipyards there could fit the entire Grand Fleet at its height with room to spare.

As for the Masadans, that might be spiteful but in the end it's more work than it's worth it, as the Peeps found out. The Masadans have zero experience in running a navy or an occupation for that matter. And unlike the PNiE, they also have no discipline to take orders from those who do. What's more, they've been under occupation for 20 years now: how much have they changed?

The Sharks were a rushed testbed. Not a dedicated warship. They were never meant to be put into service. Evenso, can we expect a DN or BB to be as destructive as a Fort? Ehm, an invisible Fort.

cthia wrote:The Sharks were a rushed testbed. Not a dedicated warship. They were never meant to be put into service. Evenso, can we expect a DN or BB to be as destructive as a Fort? Ehm, an invisible Fort.

An invisible fort is one that does not have a bubble wall in place; what TV Tropes would call a "glass cannon". It can make a strong first impression, but will not survive.