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What next after To End in Fire

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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Mon Mar 20, 2023 1:07 am

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markusschaber wrote:If the Beowulfers refuse (and at least the BSC and other more radical elements might well play along), maybe the "Engagement" on Mesa would help? They never felt bound to the strict Beowulf codex, but are still clear opposing the old mesan gouvernment as well as the MAlignment. They also have lots of medical experts in their rows.


Good point, those are likely to not only be able and willing to help, they would very much like the opportunity to help.
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by bidenntrumpp   » Wed Jun 28, 2023 4:47 am

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The book's title probably came from a Tolkien-inspired quote: "We kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!"
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 11:36 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
What is the likely scenario that every member of the military above the rank of LT, Enlisted above Petty Officer and "civilian" on any of the habitats/industrial platforms had their own dose of nanite assassins so IF they survived and were questioned they would just die. That would be very Alighemnt......generic nanite assassin treatment in your standard healthcare package as soon as you met a very low set of criteria.
Cynical but very Alignment. :)


Or maybe they didn't? Where are the nanites?

If the surviving high-ranking officers have no nanites, then it's a big, gaping hole in the smoke screen.

If they do have nanites, then there have to be plans for them somewhere in the system and chemical industrial plants to make them.


Remember; only 2 people in Galton knew about Darius; and both of them died when the last 2 major orbital fortresses self destructed. Or at least they allegedly were killed in those explosions.

*IF* the MA *wanted* the GA to believe that Galton was the end of the trail; no one *other* than those two (except for obvious "field agents") should have the nano. After all; what's the *point* of having people who never left the star system injected? If the star system fell - like it did - no information they could provide could possibly compromise things further.

Finding personnel at various levels of military and/or government hierarchy *without* nano would lull the GA into thinking they'd rooted out the core of entire group. Finding people who *did* have nano but no reasonable reason to have it would just raise further suspicion that there's more yet to be found.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 11:43 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:Finally, who would be valuable enough to evacuate? Not those that were evacuated from Mesa by Houdini, because they were already deemed not to be important enough to go to Darius in the first place. All the R&D databases in Galton were copied to Darius periodically, so there's no knowledge there that would be missed. Military personnel in Galton has the same experience in actual fighting as in Darius: none. And all they'd know is conventional fighting, so they wouldn't contribute much to the MAN.


Actually; the books don't say that *everyone* who was evacuated from Mesa went to Darius. We know at least the characters *mentioned* in the books did; but even though Houdini never actually totally completed; we don't know where the others went. Depending on who they were; and what functions they might have been engaged in; at least *some* of the "R&D" types could easily have gone and joined the teams in Galton.

Galton knew about the rest of the galaxy; so some "newcomers" arriving after fleeing Mesa shouldn't have been all that strange.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 11:56 am

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jzulauf530 wrote:The huge red flag to the GA should be the fact that they didn't run into the weapon systems they *know* the alignment had to have to execute Oyster Bay. No spider drive starships or missiles were used.

This seems like a huge blunder from the MA's point of view. Might as well scream, "nah, nah, missed me!"


Not necessarily. Not finding "spider drive" *ships* could easily be explained by them being off on clandestine operations. The only *other* spider drive units were the offensive graser head missiles used in the Yawata strike. Not something that would necessarily be useful in a system *defense*; but could have been manufactured *specifically* for that one strike. They encountered the graser head missiles; which arguable *would* be useful in that role. All they would need to find is some odd *reference* in a surviving database; without any details; and all the destruction within the system should give plausible cause that any actual *manufacturing* facilities were destroyed; either deliberately or as "collateral damage" during the invasion of the system. There's no indication that the GA knew how "pervasive" the equipment or use of the spider drive might be amongst the MA's ships.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 12:04 pm

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tlb wrote:
Brigade XO wrote:Nice clean solution. But did they get all the tubed and cryo-stored materials at Secret Base (undisclosed location at least 2500 lys from Darius? You know, the one where they have been building the next "next generation" of spider ships and The Plan has been modified to periodically send ships back to "Normal Controlled Space" and snuff out every system which hyperspace tech? After all, they have proven themselves too unruly to be ruled so just kill them and rebuild the Detweiler Vision is perfect locked cast system?

I agree that if the Detweilers are the excellent planners that the Board thinks that they are, then such a base should exist. Up until Darius falls, the Plan has been to take over normal human space as a way to stick their thumb into the eyes of the "fools" at Beowulf. If the solution is to build a "perfect" society without regard to the rest of the universe; then they could do that at Darius without any other contact, except with the Renaissance Factor. It is only in trying to meddle militarily with others, that their plans get subverted.

Despite the opinions of some others in the forum, I do not expect the author to build in a reign of terror to the stories; but we shall see one way or another (I hope).



*IF* the Detwilers were logical to begin with; once they had acquired the necessary resources; they would have left the local area for another galactic arm and built their "perfect society" there... ...with little to no chance of "interference" by "normal" humans.

But no. It's not the idea of building a "perfect society" that drives them; it's the "ego trip" of *forcing* all humans into that sort of society (with them at the top of the heap) that they envision.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 12:24 pm

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Jonathan_S wrote:
But if RFC wanted to tie those together better it would have been so easy to mention in passing, during those scenes in TEIF, that Honor's fleet knew to keep a sharp eye out for such readings because they'd been identified during the post-attack analysis after the Yawata Strike. Then it at least looks like they took some lessons learned from that to apply to keeping the fleet safe.


Oyster Bay was a *sneak* attack. Other than possibly the Junction forts; and the outer shell of detection buoys; I suspect most *active* military sensors would have been shut down when in a known "safe" system.

And there's no mention as to whether "real time" data was relayed to some backup station on the ground.

But even if it was; it's doubtful that the space stations mounted that sensitive a set of detection gear. What would be the need; after all? And the Junction fort's *primary* focus was on things coming *through* the Junction; not from entities suddenly materializing *outside* of it. Plus; the "bow wave" phenomenon was not all that strong... ...a sensor drone or a ship with military sensors had to be very close by to detect it. By the time it propagated to the other side of a star system (where the shell of sensor buoys might be able to "see" it); it might have faded into something below their detection thresholds.

Remember; it's a *bow* wave; so any platforms *behind* it likely couldn't detect it; even if close.

So it's problematical at best as to whether the GA fleet would know to expect it.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by OrlandoNative   » Sun Aug 06, 2023 12:38 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
So you tell me, where they effectively prepared for the possibility of an attack of hundreds of graser torps? Which can be delivered by one freighter.

What are the defenses of the fleet with no wedges or sidewalls if it's hit by a wave of 350 graser tops coming in a 0.2C? Do you feel confident that they could effectively defend themselves from this?


I don't think they could have, not if the enemy had found them and had time to sneak in an attack.

I imagine a mitigating factor was indeed the timing. They knew roughly when Filareta was arriving, so they knew when Tsang would move, so they knew when those ships had to be there. That limited the time they would be exposed to an attack. Such an attack would need to be opportunistic, and not as well-planned as the Strikes were.

Except, of course, that the MAlign knew exactly why they had sent Tsang there, so they knew what would happen. Like Fabius later, they could have pre-positioned assets to "help" her.

It might have also been a necessary risk. They couldn't keep the wedges up for so long under the noses of the SLN, however incompetent Tsang might be. The risk of detection would be too great. With all the traffic around the terminus, a passing freighter or courier could have noticed them and sent a query in the clear, which could be intercepted by an SLN agent.

So I turn the question around: what could they have done to mitigate the risk of stealth attack, without compromising their own mission objective in the process?

It's really not important why, but disregarding the capability of the MAN is likely to culminate in a catastrophic defeat of an RMN force when the MAN demonstrates their actual capability.

Which would be a charming change from the way the recent books have gone.


Yep, only RFC knows what will happen. I do hope we'll see some reversals, or at a minimum some suspense-building before The Good Guys finally win.


A freighter *carrying* missiles or torpedoes is one thing; *launching* them in attack mode is something completely different. Unless the ship was built as a "Q-ship" it couldn't launch them the way a warship does.

I suspect the reason this wasn't even *attempted* is because a space station or orbital dockyard has a predictable path that it basically *has* to follow; while where a warship/fleet might be at any particular point in time doesn't. You have to have at least a *somewhat* predictable "target area" to launch against. And I suspect that the Beowulf Junction terminus by that point might have had *other* defensive measures other than just the podnaughts; even if they hadn't been specifically mentioned.

The only reason the graser torpedoes were successful in the Beowulf strike was because timing *wasn't* limited or exactly crucial; they could be deployed far in advance.
"Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again."
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Mon Aug 07, 2023 1:06 am

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OrlandoNative wrote:
Actually; the books don't say that *everyone* who was evacuated from Mesa went to Darius. We know at least the characters *mentioned* in the books did; but even though Houdini never actually totally completed; we don't know where the others went. Depending on who they were; and what functions they might have been engaged in; at least *some* of the "R&D" types could easily have gone and joined the teams in Galton.

Galton knew about the rest of the galaxy; so some "newcomers" arriving after fleeing Mesa shouldn't have been all that strange.


The majority of the people evacuated from Mesa ended up at Galton, see the start of April 1923 PD section of _To End in Fire_; Zachariah McBryde knows about Galton and knows that it does the majority of the MAlign's R&D.
----------------------------
Beowulf was bad.
(first sentence of Chapter VI of _Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper)
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Re: What next after To End in Fire
Post by Theemile   » Mon Aug 07, 2023 12:36 pm

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OrlandoNative wrote:
Jonathan_S wrote:
But if RFC wanted to tie those together better it would have been so easy to mention in passing, during those scenes in TEIF, that Honor's fleet knew to keep a sharp eye out for such readings because they'd been identified during the post-attack analysis after the Yawata Strike. Then it at least looks like they took some lessons learned from that to apply to keeping the fleet safe.


Oyster Bay was a *sneak* attack. Other than possibly the Junction forts; and the outer shell of detection buoys; I suspect most *active* military sensors would have been shut down when in a known "safe" system.

And there's no mention as to whether "real time" data was relayed to some backup station on the ground.

But even if it was; it's doubtful that the space stations mounted that sensitive a set of detection gear. What would be the need; after all? And the Junction fort's *primary* focus was on things coming *through* the Junction; not from entities suddenly materializing *outside* of it. Plus; the "bow wave" phenomenon was not all that strong... ...a sensor drone or a ship with military sensors had to be very close by to detect it. By the time it propagated to the other side of a star system (where the shell of sensor buoys might be able to "see" it); it might have faded into something below their detection thresholds.

Remember; it's a *bow* wave; so any platforms *behind* it likely couldn't detect it; even if close.

So it's problematical at best as to whether the GA fleet would know to expect it.


Each of the space stations had a group of forts, shield Buoys, and other defenses around them - the attack was just so sudden they didn't have time to react. And yes, they wern't at the highest alert level because they were far inside the outer defenses.
******
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."
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