How much orbital traffic does Mesa have? (ToF TextEv)

Weird Harold wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:At worst they end up held for a while. They're not in danger.

Do they know that?

Solarian Newsies are used to the way the SLN and OFS operate when away from the Core Worlds. Being "Held For A While" by the SLN or OFS could wind up being a life sentence even with prolong. Accidents do happen, you know.

We know that Manticore is serious about free transit by diplomats and newsies, but do Sollies believe them any more than they would believe the SLN (or pre-republic Haven)?

They have been covering Manticore for some time now--they know Manticore doesn't do dirty things to the press.

Weird Harold wrote:

pappilon wrote:...That SLN dispatch boat pretending to be a news courier surely made it through much to the surprise of some junior officer.

Which is precisely my point.

That dispatch boat sat around waiting for Filareta to show up and had ample opportunity to observe any supposed censorship by Manticore. They had undoubtedly watched several other Newscorp DBs transit, yet they were surprised (and if IIRC, scornful) that the SEM would allow them to transit without restriction or inspection.

The thing is they weren't a news boat, but a SLN spy ship.

And note that they weren't worried about being attacked, they were worried about being allowed to transit while an attack was underway.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:Do they know that?

Solarian Newsies are used to the way the SLN and OFS operate when away from the Core Worlds. Being "Held For A While" by the SLN or OFS could wind up being a life sentence even with prolong. Accidents do happen, you know.

We know that Manticore is serious about free transit by diplomats and newsies, but do Sollies believe them any more than they would believe the SLN (or pre-republic Haven)?

They have been covering Manticore for some time now--they know Manticore doesn't do dirty things to the press.

Two very important nits here.

1. How familiar are those newsies (and more importantly the DB captains) with Manticore policy. There are likely many SL news agencies that have not covered the Manticaore-Haven wars.

2. While they would be unlikely to be deliberately targeted, anywhere laser heads are flying is nowhere a DB shou7ld or want to be. It appears the targeting priorities of Laser heads include as low priority "any ship".

Castenea wrote:2. While they would be unlikely to be deliberately targeted, anywhere laser heads are flying is nowhere a DB shou7ld or want to be. It appears the targeting priorities of Laser heads include as low priority "any ship".

Not arguing that. Ships, courrier boats etc sit in orbit with cold nodes, it takes, what, 40 inutes to get nodes to operating state then time to reach the limit and hyper out of system.

Not sure how long it took the MSD admiral to surrender after the initial sensor contact. Probably not as ling as it would take a courier boat to start with cold nodes and reach the hyper limit. The captain gets to decide if there is no probability of missiles firing, except for the OOPS WTF was that, do I flee and return in a week or do I return to orbit. Tough call, is all I'm saying.