Battle of Manticore - am I the only one?

Weird Harold wrote:I doubt that Theisman and Pritchart could have successfully reformed Haven without the intervening reign of terror by Pierre and the CPS. Even with the reforms pushed through by Pierre, they still have problems with old-school politicians like Giancola.

Commodore Oakius wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:I doubt that Theisman and Pritchart could have successfully reformed Haven without the intervening reign of terror by Pierre and the CPS. Even with the reforms pushed through by Pierre, they still have problems with old-school politicians like Giancola.

I fully agree.
I think the intervening year helped the mob realize that both the Legislaturests and Pierre where bad from them.
I also wonder, if the reforms Pierre was able to get through hadn't, would the people truly be ready to follow Pritchard?

Alos, I never said Pierre didn't embrace it, I just feel he didn't set out, or ever really wanted, it.
i think we will have to just disagree, unless RFC happens to see and wishes to comment?

For just a moment, Pierre allowed himself to remember another office and another meeting with the man who had then been second-in-command of the Legislaturalists' Office of Internal Security. It provoked mixed emotions, that memory. On the one hand, it reminded him of all the things they had accomplished. On the other, it had been the first step which had landed Rob S. Pierre astride the hungry beast of the PRH, and had he known then what he knew now . . .
Had you known then, you still would have done it, his mind told him severely. Somebody had to. And be honest, Rob—you wanted to do it. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't decided to sit down at the table as a player, so quit whining about the cards you drew and get on with the job!



"I'm sure," Saint-Just agreed, but then he leaned back and gave the Chairman another sharp glance. "And now that I've aired my concerns about that, I want to ask you one more time if you're determined to carry through with the devaluation and the BLS cuts."

"I am," Pierre said flatly. Saint-Just started to open his mouth, but the Chairman went on before he could. "I realize it's a risk, but we've got to put our economic house into some kind of order. That's every bit as important as straightening out the purely military side of the war—and, damn it, it's the reason I went after this stinking job in the first place!"

Saint-Just blinked at the sudden passion in Pierre's voice. The SS chief knew, probably better than anyone else in the universe, how the inability to deal with the PRH's economic woes had eaten at Rob Pierre. And truth to tell, it was the probability of a Republic-wide financial collapse which had brought Saint-Just over to Pierre's side in the first place. As Oscar Saint-Just saw it, his real job was to preserve the power and stability of the state, as the source of authority which held the People's Republic together. In sober fact, he cared less about who exercised that authority than that it be exercised well, and the Legislaturalists had failed that critical test.



"I understand the reasoning, and I don't question the need to do something" Saint-Just said. "The timing does worry me, but that would probably be true whenever we decided to implement reforms. I guess part of it is the notion of deflating the currency and cutting the BLS simultaneously."

"Better to put all the medicine down them in one nasty-tasting dose than to string it out," Pierre disagreed. "Inflation was bad enough under the old regime; it's gotten even worse in the last few years, and it's hurting what foreign trade we've been able to maintain in Silesia and with the Sollies. As I see it, we have two options: we can go whole hog and completely nationalize the economy on the old prespace totalitarian model, or we can begin gradually phasing a true free market back in, but this half-assed socialism-by-regulation is killing us."



"If we don't, then we'll lose the war in the end, anyway," Pierre said just as quietly, his eyes suddenly distant, as if he looked at something Saint-Just couldn't see, "and that will probably be the end of you, me, and the Committee. But you know, Oscar, that might not be such a tragedy. And it certainly wouldn't be undeserved, now would it? Because if we can't manage reform that's even this basic, then we'll have failed ourselves and the Republic. Everything we've done—and all the people we've killed—since the Coup will have been for nothing. And if it was all for nothing, Oscar, then we'll deserve whatever happens to us."

Amaroq wrote:

n7axw wrote:After. It happened just prior to the attack on Torch. In fact Monica was one of the things Webster had been ragging about and his effectiveness is what drew Bardasano and the Detweiler's attention to him.

I don't see us disagreeing very much. In fact, I am a fan of Queen Elizabeth. But even so, as understandable as the focus on Haven was, what happened, happened. As we look for the causes of that, the breakdown of the Torch Summit was in large measure due to Elizabeth's inability to look past the conflict with Haven to other possibilities suggested by things that were right out in the open for due consideration.

Don

Agreed. What was the original focus of this topic again? Lol.

What I'm waiting for is for the nanotech to actually fail or blow-up in Mesa's face during an operation. It's been successfully used in every operation so far (in the sense that even if the target wasn't killed the nanotech itself was never discovered afterward nor predicted ahead of time). That perfect track record can't keep up forever.

Dafmeister wrote:A quick point. There's been a lot said about how Mesa should have been at the top of the suspect list because Mesa was behind Monica and the arming of Westman and Nordbrandt. We know that's what was happening because we were in the room went the Alignment were discussing it. As far as the galaxy at large were concerned, it was one or more transtellars operating to give plausible deniability to OFS, as had been done time after time before.

Webster was hammering the point about the transtellars (who happened to be Mesan) because there was no direct evidence of OFS involvement or sanctioning of the Monica operation, even though everyone knew they were involved.

n7axw wrote:
It's true that Manticore didn't have the whole plot sniffed out after Monica. But they certainly knew it was Mesa, right dowm to the names of the operatives.

Don

Dafmeister wrote:

n7axw wrote:
It's true that Manticore didn't have the whole plot sniffed out after Monica. But they certainly knew it was Mesa, right dowm to the names of the operatives.

Don

No, they 'knew' it was some transtellars based on Mesa acting as a front for OFS, which isn't unprecedented. They didn't know it was the Mesan Alignment because they didn't know it existed, and they knew it wasn't the Mesan system government because they knew (correctly) that the system government was just a front for the corporations.

n7axw wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:*quote="n7axw"*

It's true that Manticore didn't have the whole plot sniffed out after Monica. But they certainly knew it was Mesa, right dowm to the names of the operatives.

Don*quote*

No, they 'knew' it was some transtellars based on Mesa acting as a front for OFS, which isn't unprecedented. They didn't know it was the Mesan Alignment because they didn't know it existed, and they knew it wasn't the Mesan system government because they knew (correctly) that the system government was just a front for the corporations.

You are partially on target here. But the key word for this is "Manpower," whose operatives in combination with Technodyne stage managed the delivery of arms to Split and Montana. To be sure, the Alignment is not unmasked until Cachat and Zilwicke get home, but Manpower's fingerprints are to be found all over from Monica on.

Don