Mesa occupation

JohnRoth wrote:

saber964 wrote:Why would the MOF need to wait for Jeremy X to show up they already have the CinC TMF GEN Thandi Palane and a loud shout away the de facto Crown Princess of Torch Helen Zilwiki at Mobius.

General Paline is the head of Torch's armed forces. She is not a genetic slave, she is not a Ballroom member and, while she can (and undoubtedly will) give Admiral Gold Peak her advice as the senior Torch official present, she is not the government of Torch.

Helen Zilwiki has nothing to do with Torch. Her position with respect to the Torch monarchy is undefined, to say the least.

Jeremy X, on the other hand, is a native of Mesa, is a genetic slave (an entertainer line, to be specific), was the head of the Audubon Ballroom, and is known by reputation to just about everyone. He represents the rebellion among the slaves.

Thandi is the most senior government official present, she is right at or just below policy level in the government. Her advice and recommendations will very heavily influence the MOW. Whether she is or isn't a slave or ballroom member is mostly immaterial, she represents the government of Torch and any of the slave that know that will give her a certain amount of respect and a large amount of influence with the slaves. Plus she was on planet and leading the resistance and commanding the defense of Sakarov tower which will give her more of the same.

Also hears something to consider the Ballroom may already have infiltrators on Mesa like the Felicia III these hypothetical people may give the MOF a leg up with various problems as they crop up.

As for Helen Zilwicki, she is under the constitution provisional or otherwise is the de facto Crown Princess of Torch. She may not be able to do much but being the elder sister of the Queen of Torch will also buy a certain amount of influence and respect with the slaves. Plus with Helen being an officer in the RMN will also buy some influence and respect , because the RMN has been enforcing the Charwell Convention very rigorously for centuries.

Everyone is kind of missing the obvious point, which is that functionally doing things that makes the slaves happy doesn't matter. What matters is convincing the many many people who actually have weapons not to use them. And given that blowing up cities is pretty much the only actual coercive force the RMN has right now, and is pretty much a hollow threat under most circumstances, how the hell are you going to accomplish this?

saber964 wrote:Why would the MOF need to wait for Jeremy X to show up they already have the CinC TMF GEN Thandi Palane and a loud shout away the de facto Crown Princess of Torch Helen Zilwiki at Mobius.

JohnRoth wrote:General Paline is the head of Torch's armed forces. She is not a genetic slave, she is not a Ballroom member and, while she can (and undoubtedly will) give Admiral Gold Peak her advice as the senior Torch official present, she is not the government of Torch.

Helen Zilwiki has nothing to do with Torch. Her position with respect to the Torch monarchy is undefined, to say the least.

Jeremy X, on the other hand, is a native of Mesa, is a genetic slave (an entertainer line, to be specific), was the head of the Audubon Ballroom, and is known by reputation to just about everyone. He represents the rebellion among the slaves.

saber964 wrote:Thandi is the most senior government official present, she is right at or just below policy level in the government. Her advice and recommendations will very heavily influence the MOW. Whether she is or isn't a slave or ballroom member is mostly immaterial, she represents the government of Torch and any of the slave that know that will give her a certain amount of respect and a large amount of influence with the slaves. Plus she was on planet and leading the resistance and commanding the defense of Sakarov tower which will give her more of the same.

As the military leader of the defense of Neue Rostock tower, she has a lot of credibility with the seccies. That probably doesn't transfer to credibility with the slaves.

saber964 wrote:Also hears something to consider the Ballroom may already have infiltrators on Mesa like the Felicia III these hypothetical people may give the MOF a leg up with various problems as they crop up.

Did you actually read CoG? The ballroom has very few assets on Mesa. This was a major plot point.

saber964 wrote:As for Helen Zilwicki, she is under the constitution provisional or otherwise is the de facto Crown Princess of Torch. She may not be able to do much but being the elder sister of the Queen of Torch will also buy a certain amount of influence and respect with the slaves. Plus with Helen being an officer in the RMN will also buy some influence and respect , because the RMN has been enforcing the Charwell Convention very rigorously for centuries.

Torch does not have a constitution yet, provisional or otherwise. Whatever credibility the RMN has among the slaves is vested in Admiral Gold Peak.

By the way, what is the MOW? All I can make out is that it's how you cut grass.

kzt wrote:Everyone is kind of missing the obvious point, which is that functionally doing things that makes the slaves happy doesn't matter. What matters is convincing the many many people who actually have weapons not to use them. And given that blowing up cities is pretty much the only actual coercive force the RMN has right now, and is pretty much a hollow threat under most circumstances, how the hell are you going to accomplish this?

"Blowing up cities" is a little excessive, isn't it? The Damocles KEW can be set to do different amounts of damage, depending on the tactical situation. Terekhov took out one tower on Mobius by effectively pithing it. The blast did significant damage for three blocks (3/8ths of a mile) around it. The KEW that Howell used to take out Hancock tower was a lot bigger; the series of surgical strikes that General Drescher called down against Newe Rostock tower were each a lot smaller.

She's got enough firepower to do surgical strikes, as well as enough marines to handle anything short of a major rebellion.

Also remember that, with the inner MAlign gone, the puppets will be trying to run things without the puppet masters. I think the General Board is going to fall all over itself trying to surrender. In fact, you could read the end of CoG that way.

What she has to do is hold things together for approximately two weeks until reinforcements arrive from Manticore and possibly Beowulf, and four until the Royal Mouser Corps arrives from Torch. I'm looking forward to seeing how she does it.

The choice that Mesa has is stark: either cooperate or face complete chaos.

JohnRoth wrote:

kzt wrote:Everyone is kind of missing the obvious point, which is that functionally doing things that makes the slaves happy doesn't matter. What matters is convincing the many many people who actually have weapons not to use them. And given that blowing up cities is pretty much the only actual coercive force the RMN has right now, and is pretty much a hollow threat under most circumstances, how the hell are you going to accomplish this?

"Blowing up cities" is a little excessive, isn't it? The Damocles KEW can be set to do different amounts of damage, depending on the tactical situation. Terekhov took out one tower on Mobius by effectively pithing it. The blast did significant damage for three blocks (3/8ths of a mile) around it. The KEW that Howell used to take out Hancock tower was a lot bigger; the series of surgical strikes that General Drescher called down against Newe Rostock tower were each a lot smaller.

She's got enough firepower to do surgical strikes, as well as enough marines to handle anything short of a major rebellion.

Still, it's a matter of being able to support a local government, if one can be organized and function, with precise violence in a small number of places at a time. It's no occupation force.

Also remember that, with the inner MAlign gone, the puppets will be trying to run things without the puppet masters. I think the General Board is going to fall all over itself trying to surrender. In fact, you could read the end of CoG that way.

Yeah, that is a nice and happy thought. They do really need a replacement puppet master, the poor dears. But they're at the top of a whole system that's going to be doing that governing, and there are some shifts that will be too abrupt for that system to support and remain a functioning government.

I am sure that just about everyone values keeping their own heads attached more than they value detaching other people's, although, on Mesa, the hate's deep enough that that's going to be a close run thing for many people and won't be true at all for a sizable minority. "Put the guns down and nobody has to die" may be the extent of policy that any government, with only KEW's and a handful of Marines to help it out from Manticore or Torch for the time being, is going to be able to make fly.

What she has to do is hold things together for approximately two weeks until reinforcements arrive from Manticore and possibly Beowulf, and four until the Royal Mouser Corps arrives from Torch. I'm looking forward to seeing how she does it.

The choice that Mesa has is stark: either cooperate or face complete chaos.

Reinforcements will help. The support will then be KEW's and very few Marines instead of very, very few Marines. The picture's still going to be similar. Diversity, representing not only the galaxy's likable swinging country doctor but also Mesa's worst nightmare, should help everyone on Mesa find something to like or fear but certainly take as here to stay.

Also helpful will be all the opportunities for people who don't want to try to stay on the brave,scary new Mesa to leave. The people who stay behind and are willing to live with all those occupying nations and one another, they at least are likely to be more willing to leave each other with heads still on.

JohnRoth wrote:She's got enough firepower to do surgical strikes, as well as enough marines to handle anything short of a major rebellion.

Using kiloton scale KE strikes as "surgical"? Really? What was the size weapon that destroyed Hiroshima and how big was the one that destroyed the government tower? How do you plan to use these for riot suppression in an urban area? Enlighten me as to your clever plan.

And how many marines does she have? How many people are there on the planet? This is a planet where people have anti-air weapons that can knock down shuttles and pinnaces, not to mention very heavy weapons and a very large number of extremely lethal lighter weapons held by a very large number of people scattered across the planet, most of them in concentrated urban areas.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:She's got enough firepower to do surgical strikes, as well as enough marines to handle anything short of a major rebellion.

Using kiloton scale KE strikes as "surgical"? Really? What was the size weapon that destroyed Hiroshima and how big was the one that destroyed the government tower? How do you plan to use these for riot suppression in an urban area? Enlighten me as to your clever plan.

They do have lighter KEW than that; I recall the opening of Shadow of Freedom with a Frontier Fleet one that "only" flattened an acre or two and the farmhouse in it. I think that may have been one of the smaller orbital responses FF had.

But yeah, not riot suppression gear, not in the Manticoran tradition at least. Esther McQueen may not be able to keep the "Admiral Cluster Bomb" title long if Gold Peak needs to use those much.

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:She's got enough firepower to do surgical strikes, as well as enough marines to handle anything short of a major rebellion.

Using kiloton scale KE strikes as "surgical"? Really? What was the size weapon that destroyed Hiroshima and how big was the one that destroyed the government tower? How do you plan to use these for riot suppression in an urban area? Enlighten me as to your clever plan.

Why on earth (or Mesa) would you want to do that? Her only option to keep things from blowing sky-high is to play politics with every card she has. She has a lot of cards. There are, for example, a vast horde of mercenaries on the planet, not all of whom are Mesans.

Her immediate objective to keep the lid on is to get enough people on board with the idea that, whatever the future brings, it won't be as bad as the entire planet descending into chaos on its way to total destruction (or a reasonable facsimile). While I've got ideas, how RFC is going to handle it (or even if he's going to handle it other than saying it happened off stage) is something I don't know.

There will undoubtedly be crazies, but between her marines, General Drescher's forces (if they can be trusted - we'll have to see about that) and whatever mercenary troops she can contract with, it has to be sufficient. KEWs are a last resort, and, as the saying goes, violence is the last ressort of the incompetent. Admiral Gold Peak is competent.

kzt wrote:And how many marines does she have? How many people are there on the planet? This is a planet where people have anti-air weapons that can knock down shuttles and pinnaces, not to mention very heavy weapons and a very large number of extremely lethal lighter weapons held by a very large number of people scattered across the planet, most of them in concentrated urban areas.

A PDLC should be much smaller than that.

Relax wrote:A PDLC should be much smaller than that.

After going through the atmosphere? If you want to kill everyone in a km or two radius from radiation poisoning over the next few weeks I suppose it would serve.