There is the general spoiler page for general questions.
I’m making this set of pages for more specific questions.
The rule is: do not ask or comment about a book until it has been at least a month in issue. I think that will make everybody happy re spoilers.
So I went hunting around for information and found this cute impact effect calculator. And according to it Ms. Cherryh is totally right- you can launch a packing peanut at 1/3 C and still get a ridiculously huge impact.
That means your projectile can be tiny- say, one of your hunter-ship’s detachable holds filled with iron ingots? It would be easy to aim and then blow off the hold, and presto, Earth is removed from consideration as an inhabited world.
And not even riders can intercept something launched near C. I think Earth is in big trouble.
I think, Spearmint, that any inhabited world is in big trouble if a spacefaring species wants to take it out. There simply aren’t defenses in place in Ms. Cherryh’s (very economically realistic, imo) vision of the relatively near future that could prevent a determined effort by multiple inbound ships to launch a catastrophic attack. This isn’t, say, Weber’s “Honorverse”,” with massive military-industrial infrastructures producing comprehensive defense-in-layers (plausible, given his exponentially-greater population numbers).
Whether it’s high-C-fractional payloads or a massive infusion of nasty Reseune-developed replicating bioweapons, a biosphere would be preserved by it’s inconceivable value, not its defenders. That might actually make the t’ca more dangerous than even the kif: Earth is not as much of a precious gem to them (although I imagine any biosphere has enormous value compared to bare rock).
I think that’s why no-one writes alien invasion books anymore – there’s simply no reasonable way to defend a planet against an attack from space, even a relatively low-tech one. Ever read “Footfall”?
Or check out Project Thor on wiki – aka “Rods from the Gods”. For example, Fleet railgun rounds are bundles of iron rods 2m across. One of those coming in at even orbital speeds would really ruin your day. Launch a few from a carrier running at c-fractional velocity……..
There simply aren’t defenses in place in Ms. Cherryh’s (very economically realistic, imo) vision of the relatively near future that could prevent a determined effort by multiple inbound ships to launch a catastrophic attack.
And indeed one doesn’t need FTL spaceflight to encounter this situation- that’s true here on Earth right now. We’re protected from a nuclear holocaust not by any defense system but by the concept of mutually assured destruction and a general reluctance to go there.
(But at least we know who’s controlling most of the weapons. It’s interesting the Alliance/Unionverse governments aren’t in a state of constant panic, given that every single longhauler is essentially a loose nuke.)
Yes, think about the panic since 2001 over the concept of jets as weapons. Eventually, economics wins and we continue to accept the measured risks. We’ve stopped looking up every single time a jet flies overhead, or at least we look up in curiosity, not fear.
– S
I’m glad I found this site – I have so many questions, from so many years of reading around this universe!
Since comments from myself:
Earth versus Compact? Militarily, it has to be Earth. Reading between the lines, the Earth intervention provided the Mahendosat with something they inherently lacked. Part of that was the freedom of movement; but the other, surely, has to be the sheer level of military capability.
To my mind, this is borne out by the sheer weight of the intervention – “a cloud of ships” – which would smack of significant military commitment on the part of Earth.
Of all the races within the Alliance/Union universe, we know that humans can do – we’ve had the pre-amble; the actual Company War; and now years of raiding and patrols. The capability is evident in that.
There’s plenty of evidence within the books. You get some measure of Kif and Hani ship performance – which gives you an interesting comparison back to what we know of Carrier combat.
There are some real delicious questions in all this – what did the Mahendosat truly want? What are the real limits of their own capability (we’ve seen Hunter ships, giving us the physical presence; but what’s the policy?).
And, what was the composition of the fleet that Earth sent? Was she building carriers again?
That’s what’s kept me engrossed with so much of this universe – the sheer open-endedness of so many of these questions.
For my own part, I can’t imagine the Mahendosat sitting happily within the new Compact. This isn’t an arrangement of their definition – leaving them with the embarassing moment of breaking the news to their new human allies, armed and ready for the post-Kif party. This before you consider the real unquantifiables – what of the Knnn, and co? The long-term influence of Tully, and the realisation of additional Human compacts (Sol/Alliance/Union)?
Tully’s ship, coming back to a point made above: I had in mind something akin to a Needleship. Tully makes reference to his former crewmates, who seem small in number – though perhaps he was only recalling his most immediate colleagues and friends.
Thinking back to the ‘old school’ of the Company War, I still have loads of questions:
– Which Fleet ships survived?
– What became of the Mazianni?
– Did Dekker go to war?
Which, harking back to the start of my post, makes me really glad I found this place – I’ve been mulling on these for some time, so wouldn’t mind chatting them over with others.
Hi
You should visit http://z11.invisionfree.com/Shejidan/index.php?act=idx for in depth discussions of all things Cherryh. Hope I’m not treading on any toes by posting that url, but the two sites really complement each other. Have a root around the older threads and maybe reactivate them.
Which carriers survived? I think the consensus was Africa, Australia, Europe and Norway, although I think Australia took a hit in Rimrunners.
The Mazianni – you need to read Tripoint – I won’t spoiler it for you, but there’s still a few loose ends to tie up there.
Dekker – I’m pretty sure CJ herself said that Dekker and Co ended up assigned to Norway.
Thanks for the link – looks to be some very interesting discussions on there.
As for which carriers – no India? For some reason, I had it in mind that she’d survived. Africa, Australia and Europe doesn’t leave you with much of a Fleet element to pit against the Mazianni.
Of course, for these ships to remain a valid threat (valid, at least, in the eyes of those setting the defence policies of both the Alliance and Union) there would need to be a considerable quantity of non-Carrier vessels.
Tripoint posed some very delicious questions – not least because it hinted at those non-Carrier operations; but added a new dimension, via the factionalism, and gave Cherryh a whole new avenue to pursue. A planet, indeed?
Just as well. The events of Finity’s End, with James Senior’s trade push, would have left the Fleet needing a way out. With the squeeze very firmly being applied, they had the unpalatable option of simply dying out in the dark; htting the shipping lanes again; running to Earth; or taking the leftfield, and finding another way out of their predicament which didn’t place them in the sights of their old enemies.
Surprised and unsurprised tat Dekker would have ended up on Norway. Surprised, for one, that Porey let him go; for all that that relationship didn’t work, the antagonism pushed Dekker, in a way that you often find such high-stakes relationships working.
Still, with Almershed name-checked amongst the Norway rider crew, he would then be with his peers – so, unsurprising, after all.
I’m pro-Fleet, for my sins; I think I would have prefered him and his mercurial talents out in the dark.
You could be right about India – it’s been a while since I saw that thread. Is there some confusion here? The Fleet and the Mazianni are the same thing, although I suppose Mazianni is the broader merchanter term for the carriers, spotters, spooks etc who collectively preyed on merchant shipping.
AFAIK India was lost when it ran out of fuel in Rimrunner. Book does not make clear whether it was taken or scuttled. So the remaining Fleet would be:
Europe
Australia
Africa
Atlantic
Pacific
Plus whatever rimrunners and smaller ships either were Fleet or worked with Fleet. Pity it seems quite unlikely we will ever get either the link novels detailing the war between Devil to the Belt and Downbelow or the novels with the rest of the story for Fleet or Norway. Wonderful space opera setting. I could argue the economics on population levels versus number of truck drivers/Merchanters but the culture, history and conflict were IMO unequalled.
What I’ve never understood about the end of Tripoint was- Austin Bowe was holding his rough crew together by keeping them in luxuries, right? So if they go kiting off to haul for Mazian, never to return to civilization, it seems like he’d have a mutiny on his hands in pretty short order. It’s amazing that the Mazianni themselves never mutinied (or maybe they did, and that’s why we never hear from Atlantic or Pacific after DBS), but how could you persuade any crew to join them in exile? It’s hardly going to be profitable, supplying them from their new planetary base.
Assuming Mazian even had stuff to haul and wasn’t just trying to impress more crew for his carrier. If I was captain I wouldn’t have trusted Capella as far as I could throw her.
End of Tripoint has Corinthian kiting off for a Fleet base. Our POV characters know this. I kind of doubt the crew does. Once they arrive what are their options? Mutiny and try to guess their way home? There are a total of two people who know the route. People have a habit of adjusting to things they cannot control. Plus human luxuries are still getting through. It is only after the trade changes from Finity that the squeeze is really on and even this presumes Fleet cannot find another way around it.
There are a total of two people who know the route.
Not after they’ve flown it! What’s Capella going to do, wipe it from comp? At very least the bridge crew from both shifts will know. And if they’re running supply back and forth from the main shipping lanes to the Mazianni they’re going to have to return to known space at some point.
The Mazianni’s sole source of income is piracy, and whatever they take has to feed the crews of all the remaining carriers and the spooks and pay the smugglers for whatever they haven’t managed to steal. There’s no way they can afford to pay Bowe enough to maintain the Corinthian in the style to which they’re accustomed.
Unless the Mazianni have taken to legitimate trade somehow? But what resource do they have to sell?
Omigods, I’m totally in awe of this place.
Erm, I got a tiny question about Mahijiru and Aja Jin: how large are their crews? Probably much more personnel than I’m thinking.
Ah, and while I’m at it: are there translations for the few mahensi words and sentences in the Chanur books, or is their meaning not meant to be translated?
And while I’m still at it:
Thank you so much for the joy and excitement you’re giving us with your books. They are brilliantly written, exciting, AND also have some … underlying – humanism? speciesism 🙂 that gives them great impact.
(I’m struggling with the words here, not being a native English speaker, but I hope the meaning [and feeling] comes through.)
They are ‘realistic’ in many ways, technically, but also psychological and emotional.
A very special, very rare combination. Thank you!
That’s still five carriers, which is four more than the Alliance has – so, a very useful fleet-in-being; which was the contention James Senior made in Finity’s End, that it was useful having Mazian out in the dark.
I think, in the vein of wishful thinking, I had supposed India had made it clear. Short of fuel, but enough for maybe one last sprint – either way, the event would have needed to be quick, as Finity seemed to be docking very quickly. Something that would not have happened, surely, if the fight had continued.
So, run or lost – and with my glass ever half-full, I was hoping run.
I’d used the Mazianni/Fleet distinction from Tripoint. It seems clear, from that novel, that there’s some clear factionalism within what remains of the EC fleet.
I guess the question of whether they’d need to haul, or to what extent they’ve needed to establish an economy of sorts, comes from something else James Senior says in Finity’s End – that there are interests from Earth still supplying Mazian and co.
That seems likely – a have your cake and eat it strategy. An end to the war, on the one hand; but underhand support on the other. It keeps Mazian where he is, and provides some viable leverage against Union and the Alliance. Whatever they do, immediately after the war, they need to do so with one eye to the dark, and the threat Mazian still poses.
Could be, alongside some lucrative black market trade (which, again, Finity’s End confirms as very profitable – Union loves it’s luxuries, and doesn’t check the labels so much), that Mazian doesn’t really have all that much to do to maintain his position.
I’ll echo the comments above, that there’s literally so much to this universe – even before factoring in Pyanfar, and the Compact.
It’s been a while since I read Tripoint, but my understanding is that Mazian (and presumably at least Europe) have retired from the fight and are making a relatively honest living feeding war salvage back into the economy. The remaining carriers (certainly Australia and Africa) are still pirates and I certainly wouldn’t put it past the EC (or factions within) to be slipping some resupply their way just to keep Union and Alliance from getting too complacent. Certainly Pyanfar gets the impression from Tully that the three human governments are still fighting each other, and that’s just after the official end of the War.
Spider, how long after the war is the Chanur saga set?
Earth seems to commit a lot of forces to that expedition – which would be interesting, so shortly after the war. I remember reading on an old thread, a comment to the effect that the EC had planned a second wave of ships – but I can’t find anything in the books to support that.
Odd that neither Alliance nor Union seem overly perturbed by Earth’s adventures – one line from James Senior, to the effect that Earth got snubbed. You would have thought they’d be more interested, especially as Earth could well have invited a whole heap of trouble in – the kind of trouble which might not recognise the divisions within humanity.
Perhaps they didn’t know the extent of Earth’s adventurism?
I hope some of the future novels shed some light on what truly becomes of all those ships that disappear into the dark.
It seems clear, from that novel, that there’s some clear factionalism within what remains of the EC fleet.
Maybe Mazian and Edger finally broke up? XD
Supply from Earthside- maybe, but the fight with Mazianni is really squeezing Alliance, which drives the import taxes up, which I should think would hurt everyone’s trade. Of course, politicians might care more about the political implications than the economic ones.
Certainly Pyanfar gets the impression from Tully that the three human governments are still fighting each other, and that’s just after the official end of the War.
Pyanfar also got the impression from Tully that the human ships weren’t armed, so I’m not sure we should take Pyanfar’s translations of Tully’s garbled, over-simplified and/or deliberately misleading statements as canon.
Contact is made with the Compact within 30 years of DBS- probably much less, but we’ll need Ms. Cherryh’s help for an exact figure. If the second wave of EC ships was meant to join Mazian, why was Ayers out there surrendering to everyone?
I think Alliance leaders weren’t too worried about Earth’s exploratory efforts because a) they had their own, bigger problems (Mazian and Union), b) they couldn’t do anything about it anyway, and c) up ’til then the only contact had been with the hisa, who were totally non-threatening. They didn’t know the explorers would find anything, and by the time they had, it was too late to do anything about it.
I think the EC had, by that time, simply run out of both time and space – you can’t imagine that they’d left Earth wholly undefended in packing the carriers off, there would have been some preparation for defence surely; however, by letting Mazian die in the dark they ultimately bought themselves survival, without the need for further material commitment – and commitment within a very short time frame, as Union comes charging after you!
Mazian’s in the dark; he’s your ultimate concession; you could barely recall him after the events of the war; and by letting Union and Alliance go after him you keep the war away from Earth. Which is entirely how it panned out, as James Senior explains to his younger namesake in Finity’s End.
[Erm… might have been the other Captain, but his name escapes me]
Ayers did what he and the company thought best; and, of course, they had no knowledge of Mazian’s plans. DBS was a prime example of bad timing writ large by the nature of communications and combat in an FTL universe.
And, of course, there were other agencies afoot – who was it Tanzer worked for? UDA? They got half the initial run of carriers, according to Hellburner – what say did they have throughout the war? Were any of the surviving carrier theirs?
[Seems unlikely from Graff’s comments about their abilities!]
30 years is a very short time frame, in comparison to the war – and ships have long hull lives in this universe. So were the ships planned? Did they already exist? I guess it depends on what they were building, but it implies a strong political effort to see them completed and then so aggressively deployed alongside the Mahendosat – just look at what the Great War did to naval ship building, as a contrast. You just can’t imagine anyone having the will for it!
If they did exist, or were beginning to be produced, it might explain some of the Alliance attitudes to Earth wandering off in other directions – because it’s certainly a lot better than seeing them coming in your direction.
Odd that Pyanfar would believe all human ships were unarmed. Would be interesting to learn more about how the various ships compare – the human ships seem to have significantly more crew, for example.
@Gust0o: If I’m reading you right, you’re saying EC really did dump Mazian, sent Ayres to surrender, and built the second fleet as backup for when Union decided to ignore the surrender and invade anyway? Hm, that makes a lot of sense. It also explained why they let them go later- Alliance inexplicably survived and proved to be a stable buffer between them and Union, so they no longer needed a whole fleet hovering around Earth.
…I imagine if they’d known of Mazian’s plans they would have been even less happy then they were, since Mazian’s plans involved falling back to Earth rather than obeying cease-fire orders.
Odd that Pyanfar would believe all human ships were unarmed.
That’s what she believed Tully said; it’s not clear she believed it was true.
And in fact if Tully’s ships were in that second wave of EC carriers, they were not only armed, but armed with riders. But kifish ships took them out twice in a row- which should inform the Alliance/Union vs. Compact deathmatch debate, come to think of it.
(And yeah, the crew size disparities are weird- maybe hani ships are just really under-crewed, but Chanur seems to be successfully doing with five people what the Neiharts need fifty to accomplish. Maybe Py is just awesome? ;))
…and Dublin needs a thousand! And Lucy can get by with one. Just.
I think the difference is cultural. Human merchanters are families, they breed and they have to find the kids something to do. Like laundry. Hani ships are probably automated to the hilt and it must be said their systems are probably more robust than human equivalents. I think in one of the books it says that the Pride is capable of returning to Anuurn on autopilot if the crew all perished.
Why do my html tags not work??? That was supposed to be just the shipnames in italics. Looks like italics on works, but not italics off.