Theemile wrote:SWM wrote:It's not quite that bad. Resistance does not turn the entire surface and civilian population into targets. Only military targets are legitimate. So, you can strike against the resistance. You can even strike military targets if they are in a civilian zone. But you cannot target purely civilian zones, nor can you use more force than necessary. So, if the leader of the resistance is in a city of a million people, you cannot drop a fifty megaton bomb on the city just to take out the one target.
The Edict requires a measured response. Resistance does not open the target to unlimited civilian strikes.
But, given the situation postulated above, where the planet has a missile range of 30MkM, an attacker can't exactly fire targeted penetrators from orbit. The attacker can be a careful as he wants, but to engage beyond the Planet's missile range (assuming nothing can survive long inside it,) there's going to be significant civilian casualties.
Let's see what David has to say. Look at:
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... ngton/31/1.
The Eridani Edict does not prohibit the use of "weapons of mass destruction" against inhabited planets. What it does do is to establish the parameters under which those weapons may be used.
First, they may only be used by an attacker who controls near-planet space. [. . .] Before it can fire at targets on the planetary surface, it must have established that the planet has no immediate prospect of relief, and that they (the attackers) are in a position to send down assault forces if they choose to do so. At that point, the attackers are entitled to summon the planet to surrender upon pain of bombardment from space. If the defenders choose not to surrender, then the attackers are justified in using bombardment to take out specific military targets rather than sending their assault forces down to be slaughtered trying to take them with infantry or armored units in an effort to prevent civilian casualties.
The military targets which are legitimate candidates for bombardment are also clearly understood to fall into specifically limited categories. They may be command-and-control nodes, such as planetary military and/or political command structures and facilities. They may be tactical weapons positions or troop concentrations. They may be civilian communications facilities which have military applications. However, all of them must have immediate, tactical applications and capabilities.
So, if the attackers control near-planet space and there is no hope of relief, and the planet does not surrender (building and/or firing missiles certainly qualifies), the attackers are permitted to attack the launchers, and any other military targets, including the capital. If there are civilians at those targets, there will be civilian casualties.
But it does NOT turn "the surface of your planet into an active combatant", nor does it give the attackers "the right to rain holy hellfire down on your civilian population", as you said earlier. They are still only permitted to attack
military targets. Civilian casualties may happen as collateral damage, but only if they are near legitimate targets. And even then the attacker is expected to use no more force than necessary. David says later in that infodump:
The "wanton" portion of the Edict's prohibition is intended to prevent people from saying "Oops!" after "accidentally" inflicting damage the Edict would otherwise have prevented. The Edict requires the attacker to take precautions to prevent "accidents," and assumes that if such an "accident" occurs anyway, then adequate precautions were not taken. In that case, the attacker assumes the guilt of having carried out the attack deliberately, and the Edict goes into effect. Which means that even if the attacker controls near-planet space, and has summoned the planet to surrender (exactly as required by the Edict), and elected to bombard specific, legitimate military targets, he had better make damned sure that his "legitimate" bombardment doesn't get out of hand and inflict additional civilian megadeaths.
