cthia wrote:I'd edit that thought just a smidgen. 10M Beowulfan casualties does suggest a failure. A catastrophic failure. Someone, and I'm not saying who (but it rhymes with GA) is tasked with protecting these asylum seeking, freedom thinking Beowulfans, now that someone's put the bug to secede in their ear. Just who might be morally tasked with that responsibility of protecting them? The GA!
No, we don't know in what fashion they'll suffer the loss -- be it a planetary bombardment, a massive terrorist strike on planet, a cowardly tampering with the water system or what -- or from whom, the SLN or the MAlign, but we do have it on good authority that the loss will be suffered. And that kind of a loss is massive, and it will be on the GA's hands. Period.
Make no mistake, it most certainly will be a failure. What it most likely won't be, is a defeat -- lest the count would have been much higher. In my... guestimate.
In advance, I beg to differ that it won't be on GA's hands -- at least on their wet pillows at night.
I imagine Honor or her family will lose friends or loved ones amongst that count -- if it's planet based.
ChronicRder wrote:As Beowulf isn't part of the GA, how would that be the GA's failure to protect them? Honor's family is from there, true, and the SEM welcome asylum seekers from the system, but the system's government hasn't specifically requested military assistance nor signed a formal treaty or even a mutual defense agreement. The failure would rest with the Board of Directors and not the GA.
Sadness on the part of GA officers or Honor's family does not equate to a failure on their part.
You've fallen prey to this thread's infection and have begun to talk in "delusional technicalities" again. Which will be of little comfort to the surviving families of the dead.
The GA has
morally nominated themselves as "de facto guardians," technically an "informal guardianship." The Harrington Plan hinges on what happens at Beowulf. Everyone throughout the galaxy who are blessed with a functioning brain -- at least the size of Young's, Santino's or even Houseman's -- knows that as well and will be watching its outcome with
baited breath. Especially the GA, because
bait is exactly what they have done to the League when they came out of stealth as accomplices when the SLN were denied transit and thus tipped their hand that they were Beowulf's ace-in-the-hole and partner in crime. Even if it wasn't clearly implied by the previous SLN fleet that was last in-system trying to transit, it
also hung in the air like the London fog "We'll be Bach!"
That kind of a butcher's bill is exactly what the GA doesn't want. It could be detrimental to the Harrington Plan. Exactly what the League wants without even being privy to the plan. Because the League's plan is the anti-thesis of the Harrington Plan -- concise, simple and to the point... "Let's nip this secession schit in the bud."
Can you imagine being a system governor trying to rally the civilian troops on
your planet who've become privy to Beowulf's loss? If you were a civilian under the same circumstances here on Earth, would
you vote to risk the luck of the draw to
NOT be amongst the planet-wide casualties of the next 10M
hollow-cause rolling
your way?
Everyone has known the rules since time immemorial, "If you're going to step in and beat up the big bad bully down the street to protect the little kid in question, then you had better be present for the next encounter."
For you can be sure that the bully knows that the little kid knows that he knows that his guardian angel ain't always gonna be around. And that the next encounter has accrued interest.
