Question about Beowulf tactics

n7axw wrote:The SLN does not attack Beowulf and "win" no matter how many SDs they bring to the party.

Or if they do break through to the orbitals, their "victory" lasts exactly as long as it takes for the RMN To arrive with their SDPs and boot them back out. Maybe a few hours??

They could wrack havoc on Beowulf's orbital structure, though.

Don

I do not disagree. All I'm saying is that we cannot take the lack of any mention in CoG as evidence.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:The SLN does not attack Beowulf and "win" no matter how many SDs they bring to the party.

Or if they do break through to the orbitals, their "victory" lasts exactly as long as it takes for the RMN To arrive with their SDPs and boot them back out. Maybe a few hours??

They could wrack havoc on Beowulf's orbital structure, though.

Don

I do not disagree. All I'm saying is that we cannot take the lack of any mention in CoG as evidence.

Of course it's not evidence. It's intuition (another word for guessing) for what it's worth and I am not even sure about that. Another word is speculation... which is our primary activity up on these forums, I do believe.

Don

n7axw wrote:

SWM wrote:I do not disagree. All I'm saying is that we cannot take the lack of any mention in CoG as evidence.

Of course it's not evidence. It's intuition (another word for guessing) for what it's worth and I am not even sure about that. Another word is speculation... which is our primary activity up on these forums, I do believe.

Don

Right; it would be foolish of me to denigrate the speculation that makes this forum so interesting. I was responding to people who were trying to use the lack of mention in CoG as evidence.

Two points:

If the SLN had already run in against Beowulf to tamper with the vote, I would have expected it to be mentioned in the conversation between Anton and Honor. At the very least, Anton would have had some interesting times getting access to the terminus with a large and very pissed off SEM fleet guarding the terminus agains the SLN & it's new puppet government onBeowulf. The other side of that is that a sucessfull defence of Beowulf against the SLN would have forced yet another massive change in the geometry of the political and military stakes and that would have an impact on anything that is or will be happening at Mesa (no, I will not get into detail on that now).

So it hasn't happend yet.

The question about Mycroft is wether or not BSDF as presently set up has the ability to control the Keyhole 2 and all the missile tactical systems with what they have on their existing ships. Simply put, can they direct any of the SEM weapons systems they are building/deploying now or will they have to run this as a seperate stage of defense. They can probably feed existing tactical data TO Mycroft but can they direct and apply the weapons? That would include the sensors and drones -such as Ghost Rider- which need to be spread around the system and hooked together- through FTL- to the Mycroft control units.

It is possible that the system could be brought up piecemeal- "all" that would show to SLN would be a lot of grav pulses being generated and the total amount growing as things come on-line. After what has already been observed and reported back by surviving SLN officers, a lot of what has to be FTL communications will be a major cause of concern. You also have the reasonable certainty that any incomming SLN fleet is going to be treated to a detailed list of what they have (and any problems they are showing) just like other SLN commanders have. That is also going to be a cause for worry.

Either way, Honors concern of the perception and decisions based on them by the SLN and the Mandarings is valid. SLN may try something, at the time of the vote or before it, because they preceive Beowulf don't have SEM (or Haven) where they could be accused of influencing the vote/outcome and so attempt to make a grab before the tactical situation changes and the RMN comes in from the terminus for whatever reason.

That would make for a very bad situation, one where the SLN force starts making a cascade of really bad decisions when they find out they are screwed.

I can even suspect the Mandarins of sending an SD as diplomatic ship to carry thier "representative" to observe the Beowulf vote and demanding they be allowed to take close orbit on Beowulf.
---which the Planetary Government should reject immediately and tell the "representative" that if they violates the hyper-limit of the system with a SLN warship or any other kind it will be fired on and destroyed.

Brigade XO wrote:Two points:

If the SLN had already run in against Beowulf to tamper with the vote, I would have expected it to be mentioned in the conversation between Anton and Honor. At the very least, Anton would have had some interesting times getting access to the terminus with a large and very pissed off SEM fleet guarding the terminus agains the SLN & it's new puppet government onBeowulf. The other side of that is that a sucessfull defence of Beowulf against the SLN would have forced yet another massive change in the geometry of the political and military stakes and that would have an impact on anything that is or will be happening at Mesa (no, I will not get into detail on that now).

So it hasn't happend yet.

The question about Mycroft is wether or not BSDF as presently set up has the ability to control the Keyhole 2 and all the missile tactical systems with what they have on their existing ships. Simply put, can they direct any of the SEM weapons systems they are building/deploying now or will they have to run this as a seperate stage of defense. They can probably feed existing tactical data TO Mycroft but can they direct and apply the weapons? That would include the sensors and drones -such as Ghost Rider- which need to be spread around the system and hooked together- through FTL- to the Mycroft control units.

It is possible that the system could be brought up piecemeal- "all" that would show to SLN would be a lot of grav pulses being generated and the total amount growing as things come on-line. After what has already been observed and reported back by surviving SLN officers, a lot of what has to be FTL communications will be a major cause of concern. You also have the reasonable certainty that any incomming SLN fleet is going to be treated to a detailed list of what they have (and any problems they are showing) just like other SLN commanders have. That is also going to be a cause for worry.

Either way, Honors concern of the perception and decisions based on them by the SLN and the Mandarings is valid. SLN may try something, at the time of the vote or before it, because they preceive Beowulf don't have SEM (or Haven) where they could be accused of influencing the vote/outcome and so attempt to make a grab before the tactical situation changes and the RMN comes in from the terminus for whatever reason.

That would make for a very bad situation, one where the SLN force starts making a cascade of really bad decisions when they find out they are screwed.

I can even suspect the Mandarins of sending an SD as diplomatic ship to carry thier "representative" to observe the Beowulf vote and demanding they be allowed to take close orbit on Beowulf.
---which the Planetary Government should reject immediately and tell the "representative" that if they violates the hyper-limit of the system with a SLN warship or any other kind it will be fired on and destroyed.

Hi Brigade XO,

It may well turn out that you are right. As SWM pointed out correctly, failure to find mention of this situation in COG isn't really evidence of anything.

However, consider the following. The conversation between Honor and her Uncle Jacques occurred at the wedding of the crown prince in ART. It is stated at that point that Beowulf has has a two month window of vulnerability.

Also consider that the vote of the Solarian Assembly occurred roughly 24 hours after the conversation between Honor and her uncle. Immediately following that vote, Felicia Hadley, Beowulf's rep to the assembly announces that Beowulf will take a vote to leave the League two months from that moment in time. That establishes pretty firmly that the wait to the vote is about the same as the window of vulnerability.

Now consider further that Victor's and Anton's mission to Mesa begins sometime following the wedding and lasts about six months although that time frame might be off. At least it can be said that it lasts longer than the window of vulnerability.

Therefore when Anton has his visit with Honor at the end of COG, both the wait for the vote and the window of vulnerability is over. Whatever it is that happened or failed to happen is past tense.

So far, what I have stated follows the textev. Now we come to the speculation. The first possibility is that if the possibility of a Solly attack was still a matter of concern, it would have come up in the discussion between Honor and Anton or Anton would have picked up the info when he passed through the Beowulf terminus.

The second possibility is that the author decided to leave us all hanging out to dry on this one until the next book. My own bias is in favor of the first possibility, but this one is also reasonable.

So...pay your money and take your chances...and make your own guess.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Two points:

If the SLN had already run in against Beowulf to tamper with the vote, I would have expected it to be mentioned in the conversation between Anton and Honor. At the very least, Anton would have had some interesting times getting access to the terminus with a large and very pissed off SEM fleet guarding the terminus agains the SLN & it's new puppet government onBeowulf. The other side of that is that a sucessfull defence of Beowulf against the SLN would have forced yet another massive change in the geometry of the political and military stakes and that would have an impact on anything that is or will be happening at Mesa (no, I will not get into detail on that now).

So it hasn't happend yet.

The question about Mycroft is wether or not BSDF as presently set up has the ability to control the Keyhole 2 and all the missile tactical systems with what they have on their existing ships. Simply put, can they direct any of the SEM weapons systems they are building/deploying now or will they have to run this as a seperate stage of defense. They can probably feed existing tactical data TO Mycroft but can they direct and apply the weapons? That would include the sensors and drones -such as Ghost Rider- which need to be spread around the system and hooked together- through FTL- to the Mycroft control units.

It is possible that the system could be brought up piecemeal- "all" that would show to SLN would be a lot of grav pulses being generated and the total amount growing as things come on-line. After what has already been observed and reported back by surviving SLN officers, a lot of what has to be FTL communications will be a major cause of concern. You also have the reasonable certainty that any incomming SLN fleet is going to be treated to a detailed list of what they have (and any problems they are showing) just like other SLN commanders have. That is also going to be a cause for worry.

Either way, Honors concern of the perception and decisions based on them by the SLN and the Mandarings is valid. SLN may try something, at the time of the vote or before it, because they preceive Beowulf don't have SEM (or Haven) where they could be accused of influencing the vote/outcome and so attempt to make a grab before the tactical situation changes and the RMN comes in from the terminus for whatever reason.

That would make for a very bad situation, one where the SLN force starts making a cascade of really bad decisions when they find out they are screwed.

I can even suspect the Mandarins of sending an SD as diplomatic ship to carry thier "representative" to observe the Beowulf vote and demanding they be allowed to take close orbit on Beowulf.
---which the Planetary Government should reject immediately and tell the "representative" that if they violates the hyper-limit of the system with a SLN warship or any other kind it will be fired on and destroyed.

Hi Brigade XO,

It may well turn out that you are right. As SWM pointed out correctly, failure to find mention of this situation in COG isn't really evidence of anything.

However, consider the following. The conversation between Honor and her Uncle Jacques occurred at the wedding of the crown prince in ART. It is stated at that point that Beowulf has has a two month window of vulnerability.

Also consider that the vote of the Solarian Assembly occurred roughly 24 hours after the conversation between Honor and her uncle. Immediately following that vote, Felicia Hadley, Beowulf's rep to the assembly announces that Beowulf will take a vote to leave the League two months from that moment in time. That establishes pretty firmly that the wait to the vote is about the same as the window of vulnerability.

Now consider further that Victor's and Anton's mission to Mesa begins sometime following the wedding and lasts about six months although that time frame might be off. At least it can be said that it lasts longer than the window of vulnerability.

Therefore when Anton has his visit with Honor at the end of COG, both the wait for the vote and the window of vulnerability is over. Whatever it is that happened or failed to happen is past tense.

So far, what I have stated follows the textev. Now we come to the speculation. The first possibility is that if the possibility of a Solly attack was still a matter of concern, it would have come up in the discussion between Honor and Anton or Anton would have picked up the info when he passed through the Beowulf terminus.

The second possibility is that the author decided to leave us all hanging out to dry on this one until the next book. My own bias is in favor of the first possibility, but this one is also reasonable.

So...pay your money and take your chances...and make your own guess.

Don

Anton and Victor's mission was supposed to take six months. However, things started to go south on them almost as soon as they arrived, and it was no more than a month or so before Anton left to get help, so the timing is a lot closer that you might suppose. And the two months assumed for the completion of Mycroft in the Beowulf system assumes that there were no delays in the actual implementation - completely ignoring Cheops's Law. We just don't know, and will have to wait for RFC to answer our questions.

I have gone back and reread the chapters in ART concerning this incident. I occurs to me that Tsang was unaware that the 60 Manty ships were pod layers, just that they were SDs. It is also clear that Beowulf was acting in defense of the BVeowulf citizens at the terminus and that they were defending the terminus against an illegal Solarian attack. In light of this, my modified suggestion is that the Beowulf Defense Minister be on the flag deck of Truman's ship, and speak when the ships come out of stealth, instead of Truman. Instead of saying that they had borrowed 60 ships from Manticare, inform Tsang that Beowulf a build a few more SDs than the SLN was aware of. That appears to make the balance of power 96 Beowulf SDs against 100 SL, as opposed to 36 Beowulf and 60 Manticore SD against 100 SL. This however makes it appear to be solely a Beowulf defense of the junction, which is the way it was initially presented.

Hi Don,

Again Anton's conversation with Honor was late October in CoG, at least a month possibly 6 weeks after the date for the vote.

I'm beginning to think Captain Spencer Hawke is going to have to get his own treecat so he's more clued in, except being surprised seems to be one of his job descriptors.

L

n7axw wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:Two points:

If the SLN had already run in against Beowulf to tamper with the vote, I would have expected it to be mentioned in the conversation between Anton and Honor. At the very least, Anton would have had some interesting times getting access to the terminus with a large and very pissed off SEM fleet guarding the terminus agains the SLN & it's new puppet government onBeowulf. The other side of that is that a sucessfull defence of Beowulf against the SLN would have forced yet another massive change in the geometry of the political and military stakes and that would have an impact on anything that is or will be happening at Mesa (no, I will not get into detail on that now).

So it hasn't happend yet.

The question about Mycroft is wether or not BSDF as presently set up has the ability to control the Keyhole 2 and all the missile tactical systems with what they have on their existing ships. Simply put, can they direct any of the SEM weapons systems they are building/deploying now or will they have to run this as a seperate stage of defense. They can probably feed existing tactical data TO Mycroft but can they direct and apply the weapons? That would include the sensors and drones -such as Ghost Rider- which need to be spread around the system and hooked together- through FTL- to the Mycroft control units.

It is possible that the system could be brought up piecemeal- "all" that would show to SLN would be a lot of grav pulses being generated and the total amount growing as things come on-line. After what has already been observed and reported back by surviving SLN officers, a lot of what has to be FTL communications will be a major cause of concern. You also have the reasonable certainty that any incomming SLN fleet is going to be treated to a detailed list of what they have (and any problems they are showing) just like other SLN commanders have. That is also going to be a cause for worry.

Either way, Honors concern of the perception and decisions based on them by the SLN and the Mandarings is valid. SLN may try something, at the time of the vote or before it, because they preceive Beowulf don't have SEM (or Haven) where they could be accused of influencing the vote/outcome and so attempt to make a grab before the tactical situation changes and the RMN comes in from the terminus for whatever reason.

That would make for a very bad situation, one where the SLN force starts making a cascade of really bad decisions when they find out they are screwed.

I can even suspect the Mandarins of sending an SD as diplomatic ship to carry thier "representative" to observe the Beowulf vote and demanding they be allowed to take close orbit on Beowulf.
---which the Planetary Government should reject immediately and tell the "representative" that if they violates the hyper-limit of the system with a SLN warship or any other kind it will be fired on and destroyed.

Hi Brigade XO,

It may well turn out that you are right. As SWM pointed out correctly, failure to find mention of this situation in COG isn't really evidence of anything.

However, consider the following. The conversation between Honor and her Uncle Jacques occurred at the wedding of the crown prince in ART. It is stated at that point that Beowulf has has a two month window of vulnerability.

Also consider that the vote of the Solarian Assembly occurred roughly 24 hours after the conversation between Honor and her uncle. Immediately following that vote, Felicia Hadley, Beowulf's rep to the assembly announces that Beowulf will take a vote to leave the League two months from that moment in time. That establishes pretty firmly that the wait to the vote is about the same as the window of vulnerability.

Now consider further that Victor's and Anton's mission to Mesa begins sometime following the wedding and lasts about six months although that time frame might be off. At least it can be said that it lasts longer than the window of vulnerability.

Therefore when Anton has his visit with Honor at the end of COG, both the wait for the vote and the window of vulnerability is over. Whatever it is that happened or failed to happen is past tense.

So far, what I have stated follows the textev. Now we come to the speculation. The first possibility is that if the possibility of a Solly attack was still a matter of concern, it would have come up in the discussion between Honor and Anton or Anton would have picked up the info when he passed through the Beowulf terminus.

The second possibility is that the author decided to leave us all hanging out to dry on this one until the next book. My own bias is in favor of the first possibility, but this one is also reasonable.

So...pay your money and take your chances...and make your own guess.

Don

fallsfromtrees wrote:In light of this, my modified suggestion is that the Beowulf Defense Minister be on the flag deck of Truman's ship, and speak when the ships come out of stealth, instead of Truman. Instead of saying that they had borrowed 60 ships from Manticare, inform Tsang that Beowulf a build a few more SDs than the SLN was aware of. That appears to make the balance of power 96 Beowulf SDs against 100 SL, as opposed to 36 Beowulf and 60 Manticore SD against 100 SL. This however makes it appear to be solely a Beowulf defense of the junction, which is the way it was initially presented.

This would be transparent bullshit though. The strength of the BSDF is a matter of public record. No matter how large the BSDF budget is, it's not large enough to hide something as screamingly obvious as the fleet having three times the number of capital ships as it claims to have.

The E wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:In light of this, my modified suggestion is that the Beowulf Defense Minister be on the flag deck of Truman's ship, and speak when the ships come out of stealth, instead of Truman. Instead of saying that they had borrowed 60 ships from Manticare, inform Tsang that Beowulf a build a few more SDs than the SLN was aware of. That appears to make the balance of power 96 Beowulf SDs against 100 SL, as opposed to 36 Beowulf and 60 Manticore SD against 100 SL. This however makes it appear to be solely a Beowulf defense of the junction, which is the way it was initially presented.

This would be transparent bullshit though. The strength of the BSDF is a matter of public record. No matter how large the BSDF budget is, it's not large enough to hide something as screamingly obvious as the fleet having three times the number of capital ships as it claims to have.

Why is it a matter of public record? Beowulf publishes full details of all of their military expenditures, including those of the BSC? As Beowulf had become increasingly disillusioned with the SL, it might have made sense to build additional SDs for system defense, and the SLN is composed of such clueless idiots that you could easily have sold this.