The Manpower Files

Weird Harold wrote:As others have pointed out, Diplomatic Immunity should survive a state of war, de facto or declared.

Two things about diplomatic immunity.
One is that the Solarian League has no concept of Diplomatic Immunity - which is why Manticoran Ambassador Carmichael moves into the Beowulfan Delegation's building for his own safety in ART.
So the nominally SLN forces controlled by Barregos and Roszak in the Maya Sector could intercept any diplomatic despatch boat it likes without breaking the rules, and Old Terra gets the blame.
Second is that the government of Mesa has just changed to Manticoran (probably) control. So any despatch boat with Mesan diplomatic cover is liable to be inspected by GA forces.
It may be that the cover being used is now one or other of the Renaissance Factor systems, which would certainly stop the RMN from interfering with them as they don't know which worlds are in the RF, or even that it exists as an organisation.

Very shortly after the mystery fleet arrives in the Mesa system, the Astro Control at the Visigoth side of the wormhole is going to know something is seriously wrong and notify anybody wishing to transit the wormhole heading to Mesa. Anybody carrying genetic slaves is going to want to change destinations or at least not make the transit. As soon as the situation is clarified (who invaded the system, what is the status of Mesa etc) anyone entering the Visigoth system or approching the Visigoth-Mesa wormhole is going to get an update.

Once that happens, the only way anybody is going to approch Mesa without finding out the Mesan governemt is no longer in control will by comming in directly to the system from hyperspace. That may allow a number of ships to get swept up but it depends on how far out beyond the hyperlimit they transition to normal space and how fast they discover that the system has changed hands then decide to get back into hyperspace before any pickets an get within range. While there are probably various directions from which ships would be regularly comming in from hyper (as opposed the the traffic via the wormhole) the occupying force would have to station ships in those areas and effectivly use pirate tactics to sweep them up.

Diplomatic Immunity for Mesan diplomats isn't going to work either at the Mesa wormhole nor in the system. Their government, and thus their credentials & status, no longer exists.

My copy of ART says a little different:

For the moment, Carmichael was relatively safe in a personal sense, here with the Beowulf delegation. That shouldn’t have been a significant consideration, but it was in this case. Under interstellar law as accepted by most star nations, his person was legally sacrosanct, no matter what happened to the relations between his star nation and another. Even in time of war, he was supposed to be returned safely to his government’s jurisdiction, just as any ambassadors to the Star Empire were to be repatriated under similar circumstances.

The Solarian League, however, had never gotten around to ratifying that particular interstellar convention. That hadn’t mattered in the past, since no one had been crazy enough to challenge the League, which meant Old Chicago had never been forced to deal with the problem. It left Carmichael in something of a gray area under the current circumstances, however, and he wasn’t at all sure how Kolokoltsov and his cronies might choose to interpret the law in his own case. That was why he’d moved into the Beowulf residence, which enjoyed extraterritorial status under the Constitution. Assuming anyone was paying attention to the Constitution. On the other hand, if things kept building the way they were, Beowulf wasn’t going to be enjoying any sort of legal status within the Solarian League very much longer.

from my reading, hes diplomatically immune, hes just worried about the 'returned to home nation at time of war' bit. Hes worriede that the SL will hold him as a hostage or to squeeze for info, or 'lose' to an assassination or 'public demonstration' that just so happens to kill/injure him.....

Andy33 wrote:Two things about diplomatic immunity.
One is that the Solarian League has no concept of Diplomatic Immunity - which is why Manticoran Ambassador Carmichael moves into the Beowulfan Delegation's building for his own safety in ART.
So the nominally SLN forces controlled by Barregos and Roszak in the Maya Sector could intercept any diplomatic despatch boat it likes without breaking the rules, and Old Terra gets the blame.
Second is that the government of Mesa has just changed to Manticoran (probably) control. So any despatch boat with Mesan diplomatic cover is liable to be inspected by GA forces.
It may be that the cover being used is now one or other of the Renaissance Factor systems, which would certainly stop the RMN from interfering with them as they don't know which worlds are in the RF, or even that it exists as an organisation.

What happens if the SL decides that Carmichael is an agent of a terrorist nation?

After all, how could Manticore have destroyed and captured over all those ships at Spindle and Manticore? If he's a terrorist in the employ of Manticore (he even has "diplomatic" credentials from Manticore) then he should be at least be placed in "protective custody" so he won't get injured or killed by some poor solly citizen who is mourning the loss of a relative in one of those fleets or patriotic citizens who don't share the the SL government's view of carefully protecting agents of the murderous system government who killed all those fine navy people who were just trying to resolve the crises that Manticore contrived?

Besides, accidents happen all the time, and should the nominal "ambassador" of Manticore attempt to slip off planet, he and his confederates could get too cute by half and take an air-car turn into oncomming heavy commercial traffic in a restricted navigation lane. Opps. The SL will send the remains (along with the bill for damages to the "commercial" vehicle, fines and penalties for traffic and safety violations, the cost of cremation of any remains and cost of the transport of said remains.

For Mensa one potential problem is that operation Houdini was a bit rushed. So how many people among the evacuated lost family members either killed or left behind are now on Darius and pissed off at the leadership for what occurred. Remember the only people that where evacuated where the ones that Mensa leadership felt where needed on Darius. If one person turned because of his daughter being culled just think about how many could be among the evacuees.

pnakasone wrote:For Mensa one potential problem is that operation Houdini was a bit rushed. So how many people among the evacuated lost family members either killed or left behind are now on Darius and pissed off at the leadership for what occurred. Remember the only people that where evacuated where the ones that Mensa leadership felt where needed on Darius. If one person turned because of his daughter being culled just think about how many could be among the evacuees.

Not quite correct: the people who were evacuated were the ones in the inner onion. The ones in the outer Mesan Alignment were left behind; one of them is on the Mesan General Board! Some of the inner onion people were executed instead, but those were ones they thought were unreliable, not people who they thought were unnecessary.

Keeping the evacuees in line during the transit to wherever they're going is the responsibility of their "GAUL" shepherds.

Once they arrive on Darius, it doesn't matter what they think; there won't be any way off. Herlander Simoes, Zack McBryde and Gail Weiss are the result of two different sets of completely unplanned circumstances.

Finally, we're not at all sure that they're all headed to Darius. The Alignment could have a second bolthole somewhere else. Not likely, but I do want to keep a somewhat open mind, especially since RFC has suggested there might be a second series, featuring Honor's children, somewhere in the offing. If so, either he's going to have to create another Big Bad, or he's going to have to keep the core of the Alignment around somewhere to be dug out.

JohnRoth wrote:

pnakasone wrote:For Mensa one potential problem is that operation Houdini was a bit rushed. So how many people among the evacuated lost family members either killed or left behind are now on Darius and pissed off at the leadership for what occurred. Remember the only people that where evacuated where the ones that Mensa leadership felt where needed on Darius. If one person turned because of his daughter being culled just think about how many could be among the evacuees.

Not quite correct: the people who were evacuated were the ones in the inner onion. The ones in the outer Mesan Alignment were left behind; one of them is on the Mesan General Board! Some of the inner onion people were executed instead, but those were ones they thought were unreliable, not people who they thought were unnecessary.

Keeping the evacuees in line during the transit to wherever they're going is the responsibility of their "GAUL" shepherds.

Once they arrive on Darius, it doesn't matter what they think; there won't be any way off. Herlander Simoes, Zack McBryde and Gail Weiss are the result of two different sets of completely unplanned circumstances.

Finally, we're not at all sure that they're all headed to Darius. The Alignment could have a second bolthole somewhere else. Not likely, but I do want to keep a somewhat open mind, especially since RFC has suggested there might be a second series, featuring Honor's children, somewhere in the offing. If so, either he's going to have to create another Big Bad, or he's going to have to keep the core of the Alignment around somewhere to be dug out.

It only needs to be one pissed off person at the right place and time doing something to cause the Alignments plans to fall apart.

Found the clue in Crown of Slaves that I've been hunting for, and yes, this could be a council "outside of the onion", but my guess is that at least part of the council is inside. Lassiter etc. are dead, but Ringstorff is not -- he was part of the group captured in Erewhon.

Crown of Slaves wrote:"It wasn't our idea to hire those crazy Masadans, boss. In all fairness, it wasn't even Diem's—and Ringstorff tried to talk them out of it. If you want to blame somebody, kick it upstairs. It was the Council that made the decision."

Lassiter ground his teeth. Everything Takashi said was true. But Lassiter was the type of supervisor who fawned over his superiors and lorded it over his subordinates. He wasn't about to send a blistering message to the three Manpower top executives who were part of the Mesan task force lurking in the barren, unnamed star system thirty-six hours away through hyper-space.

Likely that's not through the Torch wormhole because Mesa hasn't been using it. So... somewhere within 3 days of torch there are folks who know more of the end game plan.... Thoughts?

Wow, this is a long read. My thoughts:

Herlander Simoes ought to be able to give enough of a description of a streak drive's physical plant that it could be identified during an on-board inspection of a space craft. Given the state of war, the Grand Alliance would be justified in conducting such inspections. A streak drive would be prima facie evidence of involvement in the Mesan Alignment. Find a ship with streak drive, impound its nav records and arrest its crew for interrogation.

Also along the lines of ship inspections, a health and safety inspection procedure could include a check for Mesan Alpha Line genetic markers. Mike Henke could gather a base of comparative data as she imposes martial law on Mesa itself. (BTW, who else thinks that Anton Zilwicki will wind up as Governor-General of the Star Empire's conquered Mesa Protectorate?)

--snipping--

dscott8 wrote:Also along the lines of ship inspections, a health and safety inspection procedure could include a check for Mesan Alpha Line genetic markers. Mike Henke could gather a base of comparative data as she imposes martial law on Mesa itself. (BTW, who else thinks that Anton Zilwicki will wind up as Governor-General of the Star Empire's conquered Mesa Protectorate?)

I should know better than to do the milk and cookies when I'm reading the forums because reliably someone makes me spit milk with laughter. Personally for the Governor General.... let's just turn them all over to Berry and her merry band of dangerous bad-a$$ friends, and a clan of treecats and their human pair interrogators led by Zilwicki and Usher Interviewers Inc.. Picture this script:

"Now then, in that room over there we've got Thandi Palane (how video), Victor Cachat (show video) Jeremy X (show video), Saburo X, and Honor Harrington (show video)... and 12 treecats. You might just want to tell our JV guys and their cats what you know before the rest of the Varsity finishes their coffee break..."

Heck, you probably don't really even need more than one of them them in the next room, just close enough to talk via Hermes Buoy. Plus changes of pants for the interrogatees after they lose bowel control.