Assuming there are still Jung in Alfa Centauri when the General arrives.
As the Ghatazhak have capture the Jung Battleship
Intact, meaning our side now has an intact Jung computer (memory core) which on a battleship would include codes, encryptions, location of all the Jung bases (including home world), SOPs (battle plans). Also a battleship being a major asset would have state of the art weapons and defenses, and would go through upgrades on a regular basis (look at the Iowa class ships, they were much more capable when retired in the'90s than when first built in the '40s), so we now can tweak our weapons to be more effective.
off topic: Hans Ruopp have you read Mark Twain's essay on the German language?
Glenn,
Good point. Also, the split in half Cruiser should provide redundant copies of much of that info as well.
If there were any kind of rotation/shift change info for ship deployments, that would be very useful.
Ok, assume we now know where the homeworld is. How does that change the order of battle? What would you do differently? KKV the planet? Good guys don't do that, even though it might be the fastest way to liberate all the other worlds...
I think the hints about the Jung homeworld (Gen Bacca's height, etc.) means we get to go there sometime... sometime soon! 🙂
Assuming that we manage to get useful data from the Jung memory cores.
I think the first targets would be shipyards, take away their ability to build new warships and repair battle damaged ships, then go after the supply line (fuel, ordinance, food), then hit and run anywhere were they're weak. Make them fight a multi-front war and in the process spread themselves thin.
Could always go with the Mutual Assured Descruction option. Ice down the battleship captains body and take one of its escape pods (Assuming the Jung have them) and tote it to their home system. Jump in and dump the activated pod with the dead skipper and a message. "Glass another planet and we split 2 of yours". Maybe split a moon to make the point.
Love this series as anything is possible.
I like the way you think, Gary. Kind of Ghatazhak-like. Find the most efficient means to the end and pursue that.
Somehow I don't think Ryk will go for that, though. 😉
Plus, Na-Tan will need the resources of the Core Worlds when he faces the Alien Incursion in Book 48!
I'm inclined to agree with Eric, but for a reason that Mr. Brown brought up recently. The core worlds are around 100 light years across. Given that the Jung ships seem to have linear FTL speeds of around 10x light, this means that it'll take upwards of 5 years just for the MAD declaration to spread. Sure a jump drive capable ship could probably visit all of the core worlds in a month, but there is a larger issue. During which all of the Jung commanders would have to accept the declaration. Every commander that flatout refuses the declaration may result in three worlds being glassed.
It just doesn't seem to be a viable option to prevent the Jung from glassing worlds due to how slow the information travels amount the Jung.
Yeah, Nuc, it sounds like the Jung "Standing Orders" would prevent most of the local Commanders from following that directive, anyway. They'd be afraid of being shot for showing cowardice.
So how DO you defeat the Jung? If they even got surrender orders they'd quite likely ignore them, thinking them a loyalty test. Do you kill off a strain of the human race to achieve victory? Maybe re-introduce a version of the bio-digital plague with the help of Dubnyk?
It seems like defeating the Jung will likely require a lot of scouting first. The reason being is that another issue with the point Mr. Brown brought up about the size of core world space is that the Jung may be operating ships that are decades, perhaps even centuries old. So there is some question about how new is the technology in the ships that have been seen so far. Scouting will also be needed to determine what kind of tactics will be needed to secure a system.
The Jung may have thousands of ships, but they are likely rather scattered throughout the core worlds, so a form of Guerrilla warfare should be most useful. If the Jung is given time to mobilize (around 5 years top, less if the Jung have new faster ships or a comm drone system like the Takarans), then the Alliance will surely be overwhelmed. Likewise, the more time that passes the more likely the Jung is develop their own jump drives*, which would leave the only Alliance advantage as ZPE. Therefore, the Alliance will likely have to hit the Jung where they are weak until the Alliance is strong enough to hit the Jung where they are strong. Eventually, the Alliance will need to start free worlds from the Jung, but that'll have to wait unless there is a pressing need until the Alliance has enough ships to hold worlds. A key benefit of the jump drive is rapid reinforcement, it would only require a handful of gathering points across the core worlds for reinforcements to be a jump away. Therefore, the main thing that the Alliance needs before it can take the fight to the Jung is more jump ships, even better if they are ZPE powered. Jump fighters could work as well if they have sufficient weapons to fight Jung ships.
*Every Jung ship that encounters a jump ship and survives to pass the information, likely obtains some information that would be useful in reverse engineering a jump drive, more so if a jump ship is destroyed or captured
The Jung may well have thousands of ships and hundreds of capital ships, however they at best have 50 to 100 fuel depots.
Nathan knows all too well what it's like to try and fight a ship with the needle bouncing off of "E".
If the Alliance can salvage data from either the cruiser or the battleship, supply lines are the target of choice.
Jump gates were used in Babylon 5.
Hi Glen,
No I haven’t read Twain’s essay.
-----
Glen, You have a good point about recovering intelligence data from the battleship core. I should say I forgot that possibility.
I can only see fuel, ordinance and food depots in the nearby invaded systems (like Tanna). I don’t think that a multi-front war is a good idea with so few resources, but if They are able to free the nearby systems (Alpha Centauri and others unknown) that will disrupt any support to retake Earth and gather more resources to the Alliance.
I don’t think menace will work with the Jung even if you prove you can destroy worlds. The Jung will just glass the slave worlds and innocents will die for nothing.
I agree with Nuclearman last comment: Scout is the best action in the current situation. Only having information you can better plan your own strategies.
I also agree that jump fighters will improve the odds against the Jung specially if they can jump under their shields drop nuclear timed or remote controlled mines and jump off. Another cool weapon would be nuclear jump torpedoes. As the Corinari are experts in miniaturizing things (they did it with the jump driver) do it for the torpedoes should not be a problem, specially with zpeds and the power needed would not be a problem as the target should be in the tactical sensors so the jump can be plotted.
With a little fine tuning of the ZPED / jump drive, 30 light years per hour should be easy, meaning the Aurora can be anywhere in the fringe in less than a day.
The Jung probably have their elite on the leading edges, so the supply depots in "safe" areas will be like Tanna, lightly defended by weaker troops. Take out enough of the supply chain, then when the elite are running on "E" take them on.
It all depends on how much intel can be recovered from the battleship.
I would have to guess that Tanna was an unimportant supply depot considering how infrequent Jung ships came through to resupply. The resupplying there may of only been put in so that ships going to patrol that area had a place to go for repairs/fuel. That being said, I would think that the more frequently visited supply depots will have a much larger defensive force and maybe a battle platform as well.
I think ep#11 will be a flashback similar to #8 Celestia, where we get some back story on the Jung, perhaps introduced to a character or 2 from the Jung side. If so, there will be little progress in terms of freeing Alpha Centauri or rolling back the "Jung tide". It'll add more depth to the enemies of the Earth and how they got to be the way they are - a hard attitude implies having had a hard life and such? A story on how the Jung consolidated Earth will conveniently clear up what happened to the rest of Nathan's family and maybe how Tony got re-programmed. Personally, I would like to see forward progress on the liberation of the core but with 4 more books after the next one, it only makes sense that we begin to get more details about the Jung.
Is it me or are we missing a Jung cruiser - there's one unaccounted for that might be hiding out and waiting to trap the Celestia or Aurora while they're damaged. At the end of Resistance, Gen. Bacca details the remaining Jung ships at Earth to Eli: 1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 4 Frigates, 2 gun ships - not including the one cruiser that was damaged at Galiardi's trick asteroid. In ep#10, the following ships were destroyed:
- 2 gunships at 1st battle of Metis.
- 2 Frigates at 2nd battle of Metis, where cruiser was used as bait to lure Aurora away and then 2 frigates pounced Celestia.
- 1 cruiser and 1 Frigate at 3rd battle of Metis and running fight back to Earth where Aurora forced Frigate out of FTL.
- 1 Frigate, 1 Cruiser, and 1 Battleship when Aurora jumped to Earth to play high-stakes poker with Gen. Bacca.
Aurora destroyed the Galiardi-trick-damaged cruiser when they dropped off Jessica and Tony at Earth orbit so that doesn't add to the following total destroyed (from above): 1 battleship, 2 cruisers, 4 frigates, 2 gun ships. I don't think I'm missing any, correct me if I'm wrong. Loc 3812 - Gen. Bacca did specify to Eli that he had recon assets in place on the far side of Jupiter to watch for Celestia changing course. This comes after Celestia is already on an escape trajectory, but BEFORE she course changed to meet Aurora at Earth after all was said and done in ep#10 (according to Nathan in 10 days, Loc 6740).
So, this could set up for fast action where Celestia and / or Aurora gets fleeced by the missing cruiser once it sees the Celestia burning for Earth. The Aurora's Jump drives are down for 1-2 days per Nathan (loc 6740), but the Jung might not know this, although they could observe why she was burning for Earth orbit instead of jumping there after battle with the Jar-Keurog. If there is in fact a hidden cruiser, we might see a set back for Celestia and perhaps a loss of a major character or 2. We'll see what Ryk has in store in 2 long months....
