by David Weber
By comparison, information on the Royal Manticoran Navy has always been easier to collect. Although not entirely an open book, their construction programs, especially prewar, have largely been a matter of public record, often resulting from vicious debates in their Parliament. Other than their newest construction, many of their warships were regularly docked at their major space stations prior to the outbreak of open hostilities and thus subject to physical observation. Since the beginning of active operations, the RMN has drawn a very deliberate veil of secrecy over its new designs and construction, but that was not the case prior to 1905. This earlier ease of access may, in fact, have led to a degree of complacency on the part of our researchers, who have discovered, to our chagrin, that the Royal Manticoran Navy was not above exploiting that complacency, resulting in our most notable error: the Star Knight-class heavy cruiser.
When the Star Knight was commissioned in 1893 PD, it was believed to be an unremarkable design, merely a modern extension of their older heavy cruiser classes. Its weaponry was a matter of public record and was noted in our 1896 edition. This belief remained unquestioned for some years. It was not until a small skirmish in a fourth-tier star system where a Star Knight clashed with a Havenite Sultan-class battlecruiser that anyone realized there was anything special about the class.
Far from an evolutionary design of known parentage, the Star Knight was the first of a wave of revolutionary new Manticoran heavy cruisers. It was not only the first true two-deck heavy cruiser, it was also the first step taken by the Royal Manticoran Navy to build a heavy cruiser capable of surviving in the combat environment created by the rise of the laser head as the primary shipkiller.
Our failure to recognize this significant departure from established design philosophies stemmed from no mere clerical error. It was an intentional campaign of misdirection by the RMN to hide the capabilities of their new design. We at Jayne’s had become so accustomed to the public availability of information about new Manticoran designs that, with only a small dose of deception on their part, they were able to “hide in plain sight” a specification that bore little resemblance to the actual design information transmitted by requests for information from the public. The RMN had announced that they were mounting some experimental sensors and were therefore obscuring the upper sections of hull with a combination of smart paint and shrouding during port calls. While there were unconfirmed reports of a heavier-than-expected broadside, they were dismissed as inconsistent with known observations or even confirmation of a new sensor suite.
As a civilian publication, Jayne’s is limited to open source research, without the benefits of dedicated intelligence agencies of the Solarian League Navy. It would be a reasonable assumption that ONI has been aware of the true nature of the Star Knight for far longer than we have.
While perhaps not as extreme an error as the one we made on the Star Knight, the published data in our 1920 edition on the new Nike-class battlecruiser also appears to have been in error in one significant respect. Our artist’s conception of the class was correct in most respects. All reports that the Nike class carried a “larger than average” decoy system, however, significantly understated the issue. The new Mk20 “Keyhole” system appears to be far more than a simple decoy. From analysis of visual records, it appears to be virtually a parasite craft in its own right.
If the platform is indeed unmanned, it may well be more massive than even a light attack craft, and the obvious sensor and point defense installations indicate that it is far more than a simple decoy. Exactly why the RMN has decided to build a decoy and defensive installation so much larger than their previous platforms remains unclear, and the purpose of the array panels on the sides of the platform remains a mystery.
We at Jayne’s feel a responsibility to you, our readers, to provide information that is as accurate as possible. In the rare cases where later access to information establishes that our earlier analysis was incorrect, we feel it is our obligation to correct these analyses, even at the expense of admitting our fallibility. Our pledge of accuracy has always been the touchstone of our editorial policy. Our analysts continue to gather as much information as possible on these and other new warships to come out of the Haven Sector. We pledge to continue to work to provide the most accurate, up-to-date information for those whose lives depend on it.
Annette Konduru, Senior Editor
Jayne’s Information Group
April 17, 1921 PD
The Star Empire of Manticore
7/24/1920 PD
Hamilton Hall,
Saganami Island
John—
I wish you could have been here to hear Duchess Harrington’s address at Last View last month! There are so many things I’ve tried—we’ve all tried—so hard to teach them, impress upon them, but they’re so damned young. They’re so damned full of their own immortality, they still find it so hard to believe the universe could exist just fine without them in it. I know—I know! We were all like that once, and maybe it’s just as well we were. If we’d known then what we know now, how many of us would have stuck it out? Worn the uniform? Seen so many of our friends die?
Sorry. I don’t mean to be all doom-and-gloom or rain all over your parade. You know the score as well as I do, after all. One of the things I hate most about being Commandant—or even a Queen’s officer, sometimes—is the way I have to keep my mouth shut, especially in front of the middies, about the sort of things that “undermine respect for civilian authority.” When I think about the systematic way High Ridge and those other bastards threw away everything—everything, John!—that you and I and everyone else fought and died for. About the way we were right on the brink of outright military victory. We had them—we had them, and there wasn’t a single damned thing they could do about it, and High Ridge and those other bastards decided to play politics instead. Damn it, you know as well as I do who was really behind the Cromarty Assassination. Hell, without Duchess Harrington, they’d have killed Her Majesty as well! Don’t tell me for one stinking second High Ridge didn’t know that just as well as you and I do. The son-of-a-bitch knew Saint-Just ordered it, and he still insisted on “negotiating” with the Peeps. He let them wiggle off the hook, when we could’ve dictated terms to Saint-Just in Nouveau Paris itself, because it was more important to him to break Her Majesty’s kneecaps in the House of Lords to protect his own precious ass and political power, and God knows how many men and women in uniform have been killed because that was more important to him than winning the damned war. I don’t know, anyway, and when the nightmares are especially bad, I try not to know how many of my midshipmen and midshipwomen are going to die for the same frigging reason. Kids, John—good kids, my kids—and they’re going to be killed because a clutch of self-serving, conniving politicians didn’t care what their actions were going to cost anybody else.
And I can’t say a word about it in public without violating the Articles of War and my own oath as an officer of the Queen.
Sorry. There I go again. I’ll try to behave better.
Look, they’re supposed to be pulling me out of the Academy, sending me back to the Fleet sometime in the next few months. I don’t know where yet, although there’s some talk about a task force in Home Fleet that needs looking after. Can’t say I really like the thought of going up against the Peeps now that they’ve duplicated the MDM and built pod-layers of their own, but we’re still better than they are, and we’ll still kick their asses in the end. In fact, I think Duchess Harrington’s on her way to do a little preliminary ass-kicking of her own right now, and the truth is, I wish I was with her. But remember what Mom always said, “If wishes were fishes, we never want food.”
Anyway, I’ll be seeing you and her and the kids next month, once I get the semester shut down and I can grab a little time for myself. I’ll bring along a chip of Duchess Harrington’s address. If you’re still as much like me as you’ve always been before, it’ll send a shiver down your spine, I promise. But they’ll do
good, my kids. It won’t matter to them whose fault it is, or why so many of them are going to die. They believe, John. They believe in duty, and honor, and responsibility. They believe there are things in this universe worth dying for. And they believe in those things strongly enough to go out and do the dying for the people they love and the things they care about. That’s what Last View is all about, really, and it’s what Duchess Harrington put into words for them so well. She touched that belief of theirs because she believes, too.
And when you come down to it, John, so do I.
Gotta go. Kiss Martha for me, hug those kids, and tell Mom to get the grill fired up. I’ll see you all in a couple of weeks, little brother.
Love,
Betty
—excerpt from a letter from Vice Admiral Lady Beatrice McDermott, Baroness Alb, Commandant, Naval Academy, Saganami Island, to her younger brother, Commodore John McDermott, one year before her death in the Battle of Manticore.
Introduction
The Star Empire of Manticore is a constitutional monarchy comprising twenty-one member star systems, thirty-four protectorate star systems, and a wormhole junction with seven mapped termini. The capital planet, Manticore, shares a binary star system with the planets of Sphinx and Gryphon.
Combined, the fifty-four star systems of the Star Empire of Manticore are ethnically diverse, the product of large-scale diaspora immigration from Old Earth and other Core Worlds. Manticore is also a xeno-diverse star nation, home to two sapient nonhuman species: the Treecats of Sphinx and the Medusans of the Basilisk System.
Humans migrated to the Manticore binary system in 1416 PD (Post Diaspora) aboard the sublight hibernation ship Jason and colonized three planets: Manticore (Manticore-A III), Sphinx (Manticore-A IV), and Gryphon (Manticore-B V). The colony’s founder, the Manticore Colony Trust, consisted of shareholders primarily from Old Earth Western Europe, with a small number from the Ukraine and the North American Federation.
Following the death by plague of sixty percent of the original colonists, more colonists needed to be recruited and were subsidized heavily. Before inviting the second wave of colonists, Planetary Administrator Roger Winton and the Manticore Colony, Ltd., Board of Directors adopted the current Constitution of Manticore, which established a constitutional monarchy and ennobled the original colonists and their descendants. The Constitution of Manticore includes a Declaration of Fundamental Rights applicable to all citizens, although franchise is limited to those who have paid taxes for at least five consecutive years. With the offer of Manticoran nobility also available to those second wave emigrants who purchased sufficient land credits, the Kingdom of Manticore grew quickly in population and economy.
Manticoran territorial expansion was limited before the Second Havenite War. However, due to the discovery of the seventh terminus of the Manticore Wormhole Junction in 1919 PD, the admission of the Talbott Quadrant to the Kingdom, and the resumption of the War with Haven later that same year, the Star Kingdom of Manticore needed to adapt to be able to manage the wildly disparate star systems and populations that had come under its control. The Star Kingdom of Manticore formally became the Star Empire of Manticore (SEM) in 1921, forming an Imperial government that provided greater flexibility and increased ability to meet the needs of all member and protectorate star systems under their new government.
Astrography
The Manticoran Wormhole Junction has had a significant effect on the Star Kingdom of Manticore and, more recently, on the formation of the Star Empire. Due to the far-flung coverage of the Junction, the Star Empire has not followed any of the traditional models of expansion adopted by other star nations. While the Star Empire’s borders stretch almost nine hundred light-years between its farthest systems, all of its members systems are clustered around the termini of the Junction.
The formal borders of the Star Empire include twenty-one member star systems, thirty-four protectorate star systems, and the wormhole junction, with seven mapped termini. The capital planet, Manticore, shares a binary star system with the planets of Sphinx and Gryphon.
With twenty-two habitable planets and over twenty-seven billion people, the Star Empire of Manticore is the largest by total area and, including the populations of the protectorate star systems, boasts the second largest population of the Verge star nations.
The Star Kingdom’s transformation into the Star Empire began with the annexation of the Basilisk system in 1865 PD. Following the first phase of the Havenite Wars, Trevor’s Star sought annexation in 1914, and the Lynx System sought membership in 1919 following the discovery of the Lynx Terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction. These star systems, all of which share access to the Junction, are collectively referred to as the “Old Star Kingdom” and form a single territorial unit within the Star Empire.
The Silesian protectorate systems became territories of the Star Kingdom in 1920 PD, following intense negotiations with the then Silesian government and the Andermani Empire. At this time, the protectorate systems do not hold voting membership in the Star Empire, although that may change in the future. The Star Empire actually came into existence in 1921 following the admission of the Talbott Quadrant, which was organized into a separate, federated territorial unit at the Constitutional Convention in the Split System.
Finally, a number of single system star nations are treaty signatories in the Manticoran Alliance. Some of these systems, such as the Marsh system just outside the borders of the old Silesian Confederacy, while not considered Manticoran territory, still have a significant Manticoran presence.
The Manticore Binary System
The Manticore System consists of a G0 star of 1.12 solar masses with a G2 binary companion of 0.92 solar masses. Both stars orbit a common center of gravity 333 light-minutes from the A component and 406 light-minutes from the B component. The apparent eccentricity of the pair approaches twelve percent, and results in distances between the stars that range from 650 light-minutes at periastron to 827 light-minutes at apastron.
The total system population is close to three billion, spread among its three Earth-like worlds and its main asteroid belt. The majority of the population resides in the Manticore-A subsystem, although the Manticore-B subsystem’s Unicorn Belt’s asteroid extraction operations produce the lion’s share of the kingdom’s raw ores. Perhaps because of this space-going orientation, Gryphon provides a quite disproportionate percentage of the Star Kingdom’s merchant spacers and of the Royal Manticoran Navy’s and Marines’ personnel.
Manticore (Manticore-A III)
Radius: 6,496 km
Gravity: 1.01 G
Orbit Period: 629.83 T-days
Sidereal Day: 22.45 hours
Hydrosphere: 76%
Of the three worlds in the Manticore Binary System, Manticore was clearly the one with the most desirable real estate. Slightly larger than Earth but with a lower density, its surface gravity is almost exactly Earth standard. Manticore’s climatic zones and regions are comparable to Earth, but cover a larger temperate zone, due to favorable ocean currents and a lower axial tilt. It has a single moon, Thorson, which is much smaller than Earth’s moon, resulting in negligible tidal activity. Internal processes make Manticore moderately tectonically active. Like all life in the Manticore Binary System, Manticore’s protein chirality is right-handed, making it digestible to humans. Manticoran life is similar enough to Terrestrial life that only minimal engineered adaptations were required for crops and livestock.
Manticore is the breadbasket of the Manticore Binary System and the most heavily populated planet in the system. It is also the seat of government and the capital city of Landing is home to Mount Royal Palace as well as the Hall of Parliament, Admiralty House, and Burke Tower, the home of the Queen’s Bench Court. The University of Manticore, which is ranked in the top five percent of all university systems, galaxy wide, also maintains its primary campus in Landing. Major Manticoran industries include agriculture, aquaculture, mining, and a well-diversified industrial
sector and research and development base. In addition, the corporate headquarters of over seventy-five percent of the financial houses and banks involved in the Star Kingdom’s enormous investment and banking industry are located in Landing. The total planetary population is just under 1.5 billion people as of 1921 PD.
Her Majesty’s Space Station Hephaestus serves as a combination shipyard, transfer station and living facility for nearly one million workers (both permanent and transient) and their families.
Sphinx (Manticore-A IV)
Radius: 6,953 km
Gravity: 1.35 G
Orbit Period: 1,903.65 T-days
Sidereal Day: 25.62 hours
Hydrosphere: 68%
Sphinx is a larger planet, with roughly a third again the mass of Earth and a denser atmosphere that can cause some adaptation sickness. It is tectonically less active than is typical of a planet of its mass but is more active than Earth. In recent geological times, it had a volcanic eruption at the Stubleford Traps that increased the CO2 levels considerably.
Sphinx is blessed with extensive mineral resources. Utilizing those resources, however, is complicated by long seasons and a climate that starts out chilly at the equator and gets markedly colder from there. It is only by dint of its extremely active CO2 cycle that Sphinx remains shirtsleeve-habitable to humans.
All major Sphinxian fauna are hexapeds, of which the most notable are the treecats, one of the few alien species thus far discovered that have approached human-level sentience. By the Ninth Amendment to the Star Kingdom’s Constitution, approximately one-third of the planetary surface belongs to the treecat clans in perpetuity.
