A question about the destruction of Admiral Filareta

Zakharra wrote:

tootall wrote:Not to cause any trouble for Honor-- But why haven't her enemies pointed out that in an attempt to save Solly lives --she got a bunch of her own people killed?

Not the job of an Admiral to save lives of sailors who are doing their level best to destroy your civilization.
And to get her own people killed would seem to be a court martial offense.

Anyone that tried that would be labeled a moron and laughed out of the room by everyone. There was only about 2,000 RMN dead and about, what, a million SLN dead? The difference in casualties is staggering. Especially compared to the last Battle of Manticore. By now the Manticore navy and public is used to casualties. They would all be astounded at how few there are of the RMN even with the massive tech advantage the RMN and RHN had at the battle. To think that once the shooting started, there wouldn't be any casualties is foolish of any of Honor's enemies.

Well, if you recall, the news services tore her apart for her "brutality" after she shot Pavel Young, because she had shot someone whose gun was empty and couldn't defend himself.
So, were I a Conservative Association attorney, I might sue the government (on behalf of the survivors) and argue that had she launched first and talked later,

"These sons, fathers, daughters would still be alive today-except for the dereliction etc, etc."

So, I am not suggesting that any such charge would have any merit- just wondering why Honor's enemies haven't trotted it out there.
(Goes under the heading: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.")

tootall wrote:Well, if you recall, the news services tore her apart for her "brutality" after she shot Pavel Young, because she had shot someone whose gun was empty and couldn't defend himself.
So, were I a Conservative Association attorney, I might sue the government (on behalf of the survivors) and argue that had she launched first and talked later,

"These sons, fathers, daughters would still be alive today-except for the dereliction etc, etc."

So, I am not suggesting that any such charge would have any merit- just wondering why Honor's enemies haven't trotted it out there.
(Goes under the heading: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.")

Also remember that the worst of the Conservative press is now owned by Stacy Hauptman, and she won't have anything to do with this, and that the worst of the columnists ended up fired and being investigated for embezzlement(?), which should discourage this behavior.

SharkHunter wrote:Hi, me, resurrecting a partially dead thread again, sorry. Just thought of a tactical wrinkle/plot twist not taken...

What if while Honor was talking they'd Mistletoe'd all of Filerata's pods using some of the GR drones? Something like "Admiral F., here's what I got, (what she already listed) and just to make sure you know I'm not bluffing..."

To her comms folks: "Signal all Solarian ships, my video 3. 2. 1..." and FTL moments later, ka boom, no more Solarian pods.

Filereta turns to surrender, the ops officer does the MAlign designed "fire all option" with no pods, then blows up Filerata & flag crew and.... Then what?

It's an interesting question, and open for speculation, I suppose. But it wasn't going to happen. Honor very deliberately was not going to fire the first shot. Manticore wanted to go out of its way to show that it was trying to avoid the war, even to the point of not firing the first shot, even if that meant that some of her people might potentially be killed as a result.

tootall wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Anyone that tried that would be labeled a moron and laughed out of the room by everyone. There was only about 2,000 RMN dead and about, what, a million SLN dead? The difference in casualties is staggering. Especially compared to the last Battle of Manticore. By now the Manticore navy and public is used to casualties. They would all be astounded at how few there are of the RMN even with the massive tech advantage the RMN and RHN had at the battle. To think that once the shooting started, there wouldn't be any casualties is foolish of any of Honor's enemies.

Well, if you recall, the news services tore her apart for her "brutality" after she shot Pavel Young, because she had shot someone whose gun was empty and couldn't defend himself.
So, were I a Conservative Association attorney, I might sue the government (on behalf of the survivors) and argue that had she launched first and talked later,

"These sons, fathers, daughters would still be alive today-except for the dereliction etc, etc."

So, I am not suggesting that any such charge would have any merit- just wondering why Honor's enemies haven't trotted it out there.
(Goes under the heading: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.")

Because as I said, they would be labeled as morons and laughed out of the room. There is a HUGE difference between shooting a unarmed noble(after he shot way before he was supposed to in blatant disregard of form, and if Honor hadn't killed him, the police officer's rounds would have) and facing down a fleet that is openly stating it WILL take over your home system, by force if necessary and dictate a change of government to something it likes. The first Battle of Manticore and the Oyster Bay Strike wasn't that long ago and the population very well remembers that feeling of helplessness, and knows how many Manticore citizens died in those attacks. So anyone who complains or charges Honor with the deaths of only 2000 or so RMN personnel is going to have their ass handed to them by -everyone-. They are also going to kill their political career if they have one. Right now, Honor is the cat's meow as far as the public is concerned. Anyone trying to savage her politically or otherwise will probably be lucky to not be beat up because she has saved the system twice now. All of Honor's enemies are, if they are smart, keeping their mouths shut because any attacks they might launch have an almost 100% chance of backfiring on them instead. Especially with the Queen, both houses of government, the Prime minister and the entire chain of command of the RMN backing her plan and decision, it would take a very foolish politician or lawyer to try and sue/slander honor for a couple of years.

tootall wrote:

Zakharra wrote: Anyone that tried that would be labeled a moron and laughed out of the room by everyone. There was only about 2,000 RMN dead and about, what, a million SLN dead? The difference in casualties is staggering. Especially compared to the last Battle of Manticore. By now the Manticore navy and public is used to casualties. They would all be astounded at how few there are of the RMN even with the massive tech advantage the RMN and RHN had at the battle. To think that once the shooting started, there wouldn't be any casualties is foolish of any of Honor's enemies.

Well, if you recall, the news services tore her apart for her "brutality" after she shot Pavel Young, because she had shot someone whose gun was empty and couldn't defend himself.
So, were I a Conservative Association attorney, I might sue the government (on behalf of the survivors) and argue that had she launched first and talked later,

"These sons, fathers, daughters would still be alive today-except for the dereliction etc, etc."

So, I am not suggesting that any such charge would have any merit- just wondering why Honor's enemies haven't trotted it out there.
(Goes under the heading: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.")

In such a hypothetical court martial case, the defense presents its first piece of evidence: video of Filareta agreeing to surrender. Defense then asks a suitable witness, "Is it RMN policy to shoot surrendered opponents?" "No." "The defense rests."

Plus, they never managed to put Honor on trial for not passing command to another Captain when Sarnow was wounded at Hancock. If they couldn't do that with Dmitri Young pulling all his strings back then, they sure aren't going to be able to pursue anything of the nature after the devastating term in government they had during WoH.

Do you remember the TINY bit of information that the conversation amoung the people running Honor down verbally after the duel and failed to mention the part about Young shooting her IN THE BACK and managed to empty his gun before she shot him?

Clearly, those who wish to ignore inconvenient facts will do so.

The officer under then nano-control got the pods to fire. Honor didn't order fire on Filerta until the massive volley from the pods. Once the pods fired, Honor was justified destroying every SLN ship in that fleet except those that actually surrendered and some of those were probably going to get at least shot-up but more probably destroyed between surrendering (dropping the wedge is going to be a really doubtful way to do it with the incomming storm of metal) and any of the GA ships getting off a self-destruct order to it's own missiles about to hit that surrendering ship. Might have something to do with needing to concentrate on killing incomming SLN missiles and continuing to engage targets which still have powered weapons heading at you. You surrender? Then why are X of the weapons YOU fired still comming at my ship(s). You stop yours first, then we will stop trying to kill you.

tootall wrote

So, I am not suggesting that any such charge would have any merit- just wondering why Honor's enemies haven't trotted it out there.

Zakharra wrote

Right now, Honor is the cat's meow as far as the public is concerned. Anyone trying to savage her politically or otherwise will probably be lucky to not be beat up because she has saved the system twice now. All of Honor's enemies are, if they are smart, keeping their mouths shut because any attacks they might launch have an almost 100% chance of backfiring on them instead. Especially with the Queen, both houses of government, the Prime minister and the entire chain of command of the RMN backing her plan and decision, it would take a very foolish politician or lawyer to try and sue/slander honor for a couple of years.[/quote]

OK- OK You have too many points on your side- I concede.

My thought to what happened after the Admiral under Nano control typed in the code would be one of several things.

1# blows up the bomb
2# starts a computer program inside the Flagship to do several things
a) send a recorded message of Admiral Filareta to the rest of the fleet to open fire.
b) Lock out the flagship from sending any communications to any outside source.
c) locks out all escape pods and small craft from being used to escape the flagship.
d) waits until the flagships damage control system records an weapon impact to the hull and then blow up the fusion cores


If I was a paranoid bunch of supermen who think to clean up all possible chance at someone getting a hint of the truth. Setting up a Superdreadnaught to blow itself EMC2 to hide any "Alignment" fingerprints seems reasonable if I was a heartless fanatical Self deluded superman wanna be.

tootall wrote:Not to cause any trouble for Honor-- But why haven't her enemies pointed out that in an attempt to save Solly lives --she got a bunch of her own people killed?

Not the job of an Admiral to save lives of sailors who are doing their level best to destroy your civilization.
And to get her own people killed would seem to be a court martial offense.

Not with a rational government. The Admiral's objective is to attain the desired *political* ends of your side, not to get spectacular kill ratios.

Brent7s wrote:My thought to what happened after the Admiral under Nano control typed in the code would be one of several things.

1# blows up the bomb
2# starts a computer program inside the Flagship to do several things
a) send a recorded message of Admiral Filareta to the rest of the fleet to open fire.
b) Lock out the flagship from sending any communications to any outside source.
c) locks out all escape pods and small craft from being used to escape the flagship.
d) waits until the flagships damage control system records an weapon impact to the hull and then blow up the fusion cores


If I was a paranoid bunch of supermen who think to clean up all possible chance at someone getting a hint of the truth. Setting up a Superdreadnaught to blow itself EMC2 to hide any "Alignment" fingerprints seems reasonable if I was a heartless fanatical Self deluded superman wanna be.

Reverse steps 1 and 2a-c, then execute 2d.