Battle of Manticore - am I the only one?

Hi Lyonheart,

I had to review this thread before responding.

No there was no hard proof--to implicate either Manpower or Haven.

But my point was that after Monica, there was more than adequate reason to suspect Manpower. In fact after the Webster assasination, the logic chain for suspecting Manpower becomes more compelling than the one for suspecting Haven.

Don

n7axw wrote:Hi Lyonheart,

I had to review this thread before responding.

No there was no hard proof--to implicate either Manpower or Haven.

But my point was that after Monica, there was more than adequate reason to suspect Manpower. In fact after the Webster assasination, the logic chain for suspecting Manpower becomes more compelling than the one for suspecting Haven.

Don

Not really, since Manpower was not known for political assassinations (especially using nanotech) but Haven had a long history of it, including the attack on Honor. Manpower was NOT, in any way, a suspect in the Timothy Meares incident, and there was no good reason to suspect them. You keep insisting that there was, but I continue to disagree.

SWM wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Lyonheart,

I had to review this thread before responding.

No there was no hard proof--to implicate either Manpower or Haven.

But my point was that after Monica, there was more than adequate reason to suspect Manpower. In fact after the Webster assasination, the logic chain for suspecting Manpower becomes more compelling than the one for suspecting Haven.

Don

Not really, since Manpower was not known for political assassinations (especially using nanotech) but Haven had a long history of it, including the attack on Honor. Manpower was NOT, in any way, a suspect in the Timothy Meares incident, and there was no good reason to suspect them. You keep insisting that there was, but I continue to disagree.

I respectfully disagree. Manpower has been into asassinations up to its ears for as long they have been in business. I would have to scrounge a bit for the textev, but one specific incident that comes to mind is that incident in Beauty and the Beast that Jacques and his BSC team broke up that upset Manpower so bad they went after Alison. I'll give you that the nanotech bit was new. But the Alignment under it's Manpower cover has been "tieing up loose ends" that way all along. Remember the attempt on Cathy Montaign that Zilwikie thwarted?

Elizabeth may well have focused down on Haven for completely understandable reasons. But She would have been under no illusions at all about Manpower and its reputation.

Don

It's true they do assassinations, but they also seem to be really, really good at it. So I'm not sure how widely know this is.

n7axw wrote:

I respectfully disagree. Manpower has been into asassinations up to its ears for as long they have been in business. I would have to scrounge a bit for the textev, but one specific incident that comes to mind is that incident in Beauty and the Beast that Jacques and his BSC team broke up that upset Manpower so bad they went after Alison. I'll give you that the nanotech bit was new. But the Alignment under it's Manpower cover has been "tieing up loose ends" that way all along. Remember the attempt on Cathy Montaign that Zilwikie thwarted?

Elizabeth may well have focused down on Haven for completely understandable reasons. But She would have been under no illusions at all about Manpower and its reputation.

Don

Yes, Manpower have used assassination for a long time, but:

1) So has Haven.

2) Manpower has never (so far as is known) targeted a star nation is this way, as opposed to a personal opponent. Cathy and Anton are deeply involved with the Anti-Slavery League and the Audubon Ballroom, so they fall squarely into the second category.

3) Webster was attacking the Mesan corporations as part of Manticore's PR campaign after the Battle of Monica, i.e. to defend the Star Kingdom against the charge that the nasty imperialist neobarbsm, not content with subjugating the whole of the poor, defenceless Talbott cluster, had now brazenly attacked the poor, defenceless Republic of Monica. He wasn't saying anything about the transtellars that hadn't been said a million times before by a million other people, and most people who paid attention to such things would know that he was using his attack on them as code for attacking OFS - as far as anyone knew, the transtellars were acting as OFS proxies at the time, because no-one knew that OFS was (unknowingly) working for the MA. Therefore, so far as Manticore knew, Manpower had no particular reason to go after Webster any more than to go after countless others before him.

4) Webster was also working very effectively in the PR battle between Manticore and Haven, so Haven definitely had motive for killing him.

5) It was 'known' that Haven was behind the assassination attempt on Honor, because who else would have reason to attack her? She hates genetic slavery and has attack the slave trade before, but so have thousands of other RMN officers, so why would Manpower target her? Haven, on the other hand, had every reason to want her dead. Therefore, it would be reasonable to assume that Haven was behind any similar attacks, especially if there was a plausible motive for Haven to want that target dead.

Dafmeister wrote:

n7axw wrote:

I respectfully disagree. Manpower has been into asassinations up to its ears for as long they have been in business. I would have to scrounge a bit for the textev, but one specific incident that comes to mind is that incident in Beauty and the Beast that Jacques and his BSC team broke up that upset Manpower so bad they went after Alison. I'll give you that the nanotech bit was new. But the Alignment under it's Manpower cover has been "tieing up loose ends" that way all along. Remember the attempt on Cathy Montaign that Zilwikie thwarted?

Elizabeth may well have focused down on Haven for completely understandable reasons. But She would have been under no illusions at all about Manpower and its reputation.

Don

Yes, Manpower have used assassination for a long time, but:

1) So has Haven.

2) Manpower has never (so far as is known) targeted a star nation is this way, as opposed to a personal opponent. Cathy and Anton are deeply involved with the Anti-Slavery League and the Audubon Ballroom, so they fall squarely into the second category.

3) Webster was attacking the Mesan corporations as part of Manticore's PR campaign after the Battle of Monica, i.e. to defend the Star Kingdom against the charge that the nasty imperialist neobarbsm, not content with subjugating the whole of the poor, defenceless Talbott cluster, had now brazenly attacked the poor, defenceless Republic of Monica. He wasn't saying anything about the transtellars that hadn't been said a million times before by a million other people, and most people who paid attention to such things would know that he was using his attack on them as code for attacking OFS - as far as anyone knew, the transtellars were acting as OFS proxies at the time, because no-one knew that OFS was (unknowingly) working for the MA. Therefore, so far as Manticore knew, Manpower had no particular reason to go after Webster any more than to go after countless others before him.

4) Webster was also working very effectively in the PR battle between Manticore and Haven, so Haven definitely had motive for killing him.

5) It was 'known' that Haven was behind the assassination attempt on Honor, because who else would have reason to attack her? She hates genetic slavery and has attack the slave trade before, but so have thousands of other RMN officers, so why would Manpower target her? Haven, on the other hand, had every reason to want her dead. Therefore, it would be reasonable to assume that Haven was behind any similar attacks, especially if there was a plausible motive for Haven to want that target dead.

I can't believe I'm saying this, given my reputation, but I'm with Dafmeister on this one.

We know that Eloise Pritchart, Thomas Theisman, and their government would condone no such thing. Eloise and Tom know they would condone no such thing. But Manticore had no such idea - except possibly for Honor - and given past appearances, they had every reason to believe Haven might be responsible.

Dafmeister wrote:2) Manpower has never (so far as is known) targeted a star nation is this way, as opposed to a personal opponent. Cathy and Anton are deeply involved with the Anti-Slavery League and the Audubon Ballroom, so they fall squarely into the second category.

Not exactly. The wave of mysterious assassinations and other bad things that brought down the reformist Confed government way back when really look a whole like like manpower.

kzt wrote:

Not exactly. The wave of mysterious assassinations and other bad things that brought down the reformist Confed government way back when really look a whole like like manpower.[/quote]

They do now, knowing what we know about the Mesan Alignment. Whether they looked that way at the time is another matter. I suspect that they didn't, or Mesa would have been dealt with a long time ago.

Dafmeister wrote:

kzt wrote:Not exactly. The wave of mysterious assassinations and other bad things that brought down the reformist Confed government way back when really look a whole like like manpower.

They do now, knowing what we know about the Mesan Alignment. Whether they looked that way at the time is another matter. I suspect that they didn't, or Mesa would have been dealt with a long time ago.

And even if Manticore knew that Manpower was behind that, the reformist Confed government was cracking down on the corruption that allowed the genetic slavery trade to flourish in Silesia. (And of course they were working with corrupt Silesian system governments who had their own reasons to wish to be free of the reformist Confeds) That Confed government was a clear and immediate threat to Manpower's profits. So it's reasonable plausible that Manpower, along with their corrupt Silesian associates, would takes steps to remove that threat.

But at the time of the assassination attempts again Admiral Webster and Honor neither were making direct actions that clearly and immediately threatened the viability of the genetic slave trade. (And eliminating them wouldn't change Manticore's basic anti-slavery stance or enforcement)


Sure, if Webster had been agitating for an "quarantine" of Mesa to forcibly inspect all outbound ships for slaves, or slaving equipment, then people might immediately suspect Manpower of orchestrating his assassination. But he wasn't. Nor was Honor openly advocating, nor carrying out, any specific anti-slavery actions.

So it's a hell of a lot longer stretch to suspect slavers of arranging multiple assassination just to keep a war going, when their only perceivable benefit is a bit of reduction in the focus those waring powers can give to anti-slavery efforts within their (limited) areas of operation. That would be like suspecting slavers of having perpetuated or extended the Napoleonic Wars in order to distract the Royal Navy from anti-slavery patrol off the coast of Africa.
It just seems preposterous.

[edit: Admiral Webster; not Weber ]

Dafmeister wrote:
5) It was 'known' that Haven was behind the assassination attempt on Honor, because who else would have reason to attack her? She hates genetic slavery and has attack the slave trade before, but so have thousands of other RMN officers, so why would Manpower target her? Haven, on the other hand, had every reason to want her dead. Therefore, it would be reasonable to assume that Haven was behind any similar attacks, especially if there was a plausible motive for Haven to want that target dead.

Wow, this argument is still going on? Lol. I agree that the other actions that led Elizabeth to break off the peace talks with Haven (i.e. Torch attack and Webster assassination) could have had either Haven or Manpower as the culprit and that Beth let her prejudices steer her toward Haven without adequately considering Manpower. But as I've mentioned before the wildcard was Honor's assassination which used the same nanotech but didn't have very obvious Mesan connections. I think the attack on Honor was the one that did and didn't fit the pattern and led Elizabeth's and her adviser's thinking astray.