Remaining holes in SLN intel

Pat Givens wrote:Nobody keeps anything this broad, this ambitious, hidden for as long as Simoes and McBryde's information suggests these people have been around. Without being very very good.

I don't know about that.

First off, it is a very big galaxy. Intelligence services have finite resources.

Second, they were hiding in plain sight with a plausible cover story. Since everyone knew Manpower was an outlaw corporation they could hide and cover a lot of their activities right there. Including their human geengineering programs.

Third, and most importantly, nobody was looking for them. Everybody knew the Detweilers were long dead. Everybody knew what Manpower was. Everybody knew the Mesan Transtellars had cozy arrangements with League governments. So there was really nothing new to see.

tlb wrote:What Edict - the one that prohibits planetary bombardment from space? The official Mesan explanation (if I remember correctly) was that this was an Audubon Ballroom terror action as retribution for the naval attack on Torch, which received the help of seccies and the notorious Manticorean spy named Anton Zilwicki. They did not dispute that Torch was at war; instead portrayed this as an assault on women and children, rather than any military target. It was never claimed to be a bombardment from space, unlike the probable claims after the Manticore Navy arrived at Mesa.

The one that prohibits the use of ALL WMDs against civilians.


http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/31/0
" The Eridani Edict has some points in common with the rule of the "practicable breach." Essentially, the Eridani Edict says that no star nation may engage in the wholesale and wanton slaughter of civilian populations using any weapon of mass destruction. The actual language of the edict is clearly oriented towards nuclear or kinetic strikes, but it applies more to the intent and purpose of the weapon than to its actual characteristics, except inasmuch as those characteristics may define the… controlability of its area of effect."

n7axw wrote:And oh yes, we are fussing about the 3 nukes that Anton and Victor were marginly involved in, one of which happened because David went off his rocker and bombed a kiddy park at Green Pines. But how many explosions went off while Houdini was being executed including that final flourish when Albrecht hit the button with Tourville and Henke in orbit? And, I almost forgot, how many kids died then?

Why do people dwell on the millions killed by the Nazis death camps when over 70 million got killed in the war? It's not they did this in a few hours, like the US did when they killed ~100,000 civilians in Operation Meetinghouse. Or that Hitler was especially good at mass murder, that honor goes to Stalin (~50 million) and Mao (~35 million).

Why then do people remember the camps?

Although that's a rhetorical question: because someone else being as bad or worse doesn't excuse bad acts. There are plenty of governments in Honorverse that get by just fine without resorting to nuclear terrorism. The A.E. and Grayson being two obvious ones.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:And oh yes, we are fussing about the 3 nukes that Anton and Victor were marginly involved in, one of which happened because David went off his rocker and bombed a kiddy park at Green Pines. But how many explosions went off while Houdini was being executed including that final flourish when Albrecht hit the button with Tourville and Henke in orbit? And, I almost forgot, how many kids died then?

Why do people dwell on the millions killed by the Nazis death camps when over 70 million got killed in the war? It's not they did this in a few hours, like the US did when they killed ~100,000 civilians in Operation Meetinghouse. Or that Hitler was especially good at mass murder, that honor goes to Stalin (~50 million) and Mao (~35 million).

Why then do people remember the camps?

They remember because it was particularly brutal. Yes, the communists killed more (although we should also recall they had far more time to do it) but the camps were an industrialized murder factory of specific groups of people.

Remember the old line about one death being a tragedy and millions being statistics.

Keep in mind that a lot of the deaths in Russia were overlooked because of the mind corruption of so many reporters. They looked at all the stated lofty goals and ignored the deaths. These people continue to do it today. How many celebrities (not to mention regular folks) go over to Cuba and don't bother to worry about people thrown into detention camps for decades? Conan O'Brien spent a week talking to people there for his show and never mentioned the political prisoners.

With the Nazis, they LOST the wars. And people could actually see the horror of the camps. In Russia, China, etc. people were just shot at the side of the road or moved into places no one else could go.

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:And oh yes, we are fussing about the 3 nukes that Anton and Victor were marginly involved in, one of which happened because David went off his rocker and bombed a kiddy park at Green Pines. But how many explosions went off while Houdini was being executed including that final flourish when Albrecht hit the button with Tourville and Henke in orbit? And, I almost forgot, how many kids died then?

Why do people dwell on the millions killed by the Nazis death camps when over 70 million got killed in the war? It's not they did this in a few hours, like the US did when they killed ~100,000 civilians in Operation Meetinghouse. Or that Hitler was especially good at mass murder, that honor goes to Stalin (~50 million) and Mao (~35 million).

Why then do people remember the camps?

Because the camps are more concrete and a bit less mindboggling to get one's brain around. My point is that the rest of it shouldn't be forgotten but have to be weighed into any moral consideration of the consequences of any one part of the picture.

n7axw wrote:Because the camps are more concrete and a bit less mindboggling to get one's brain around. My point is that the rest of it shouldn't be forgotten but have to be weighed into any moral consideration of the consequences of any one part of the picture.

Like say a team of terrorists who deliberately targeted thousands of children for a nuclear attack? Who were organized, armed and lead by who?

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:And oh yes, we are fussing about the 3 nukes that Anton and Victor were marginly involved in, one of which happened because David went off his rocker and bombed a kiddy park at Green Pines. But how many explosions went off while Houdini was being executed including that final flourish when Albrecht hit the button with Tourville and Henke in orbit? And, I almost forgot, how many kids died then?

Why do people dwell on the millions killed by the Nazis death camps when over 70 million got killed in the war? It's not they did this in a few hours, like the US did when they killed ~100,000 civilians in Operation Meetinghouse. Or that Hitler was especially good at mass murder, that honor goes to Stalin (~50 million) and Mao (~35 million).

Why then do people remember the camps?

The in your face, personal, atrocious, abhorrent inhumanity of the Nazi deaths.

The inhuman element strikes yet again.

drinksmuchcoffee wrote:

Pat Givens wrote:Nobody keeps anything this broad, this ambitious, hidden for as long as Simoes and McBryde's information suggests these people have been around. Without being very very good.

I don't know about that.

First off, it is a very big galaxy. Intelligence services have finite resources.

Second, they were hiding in plain sight with a plausible cover story. Since everyone knew Manpower was an outlaw corporation they could hide and cover a lot of their activities right there. Including their human geengineering programs.

Third, and most importantly, nobody was looking for them. Everybody knew the Detweilers were long dead. Everybody knew what Manpower was. Everybody knew the Mesan Transtellars had cozy arrangements with League governments. So there was really nothing new to see.

The vastness of the entire galaxy pales at the size of one very big mouth. So I can understand Givens sentiment. A secret cabal existing for centuries without someone getting wind of it seems beyond absurd.

kzt wrote:

tlb wrote:What Edict - the one that prohibits planetary bombardment from space? The official Mesan explanation (if I remember correctly) was that this was an Audubon Ballroom terror action as retribution for the naval attack on Torch, which received the help of seccies and the notorious Manticorean spy named Anton Zilwicki. They did not dispute that Torch was at war; instead portrayed this as an assault on women and children, rather than any military target. It was never claimed to be a bombardment from space, unlike the probable claims after the Manticore Navy arrived at Mesa.

The one that prohibits the use of ALL WMDs against civilians.


http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/31/0
" The Eridani Edict has some points in common with the rule of the "practicable breach." Essentially, the Eridani Edict says that no star nation may engage in the wholesale and wanton slaughter of civilian populations using any weapon of mass destruction. The actual language of the edict is clearly oriented towards nuclear or kinetic strikes, but it applies more to the intent and purpose of the weapon than to its actual characteristics, except inasmuch as those characteristics may define the… controlability of its area of effect."

Zilwicki and Co., were not involved in anything wholesale and wanton.

Besides, there is a qualifying clause in the edict. "Except to put down terrorist uprisings?," or something of that nature. I think that was the clause the SLN used when they burned a few kews against the rebels in (forget the planets name) Shadow of Victory.