Turning points in the RMN/RHN war

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course Haven wouldn't have gotten their unconditional ceasefire if not for Operation Hassan.

With the Cromarty government still solidly in place there's no reason to give Saint Just more than a short (maybe at most 6-9 month pause) during which he must provide solid terms for Haven's surrender. Otherwise turn 8th fleet loose to finish the job.


It's turning points all the way down

Operation Hassan had four possible outcomes.
A) What happened - Elizabeth alive, Cromarty dead. Resulted in a Lords takeover.
B) Both alive, as Jonathan_S describes
C) Elizabeth dead, Cromarty alive. Really depends on how restrained the new King Roger IV will be, but there's no question of a swift conclusion.
D) Both dead. Probably results in a constitutional crisis, as Roger collides with the Lords.

It would've been a hell of a crisis too. White Haven could have received a direct order from King Roger IV ordering him to go straight to the Haven system and compel surrender by whatever means necessary.

Nothing High Ridge could do about that, especially if Roger pulls the trigger Elizabeth didn't and refuses permission to form a new Cabinet.

And if White Haven won the Battle of Haven and brought a surrender home, the war would have been over. Triggering the elections High Ridge put off and seating the San Martino peers.

munroburton wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Of course Haven wouldn't have gotten their unconditional ceasefire if not for Operation Hassan.

With the Cromarty government still solidly in place there's no reason to give Saint Just more than a short (maybe at most 6-9 month pause) during which he must provide solid terms for Haven's surrender. Otherwise turn 8th fleet loose to finish the job.


It's turning points all the way down

Operation Hassan had four possible outcomes.
A) What happened - Elizabeth alive, Cromarty dead. Resulted in a Lords takeover.
B) Both alive, as Jonathan_S describes
C) Elizabeth dead, Cromarty alive. Really depends on how restrained the new King Roger IV will be, but there's no question of a swift conclusion.
D) Both dead. Probably results in a constitutional crisis, as Roger collides with the Lords.

It would've been a hell of a crisis too. White Haven could have received a direct order from King Roger IV ordering him to go straight to the Haven system and compel surrender by whatever means necessary.

Nothing High Ridge could do about that, especially if Roger pulls the trigger Elizabeth didn't and refuses permission to form a new Cabinet.

And if White Haven won the Battle of Haven and brought a surrender home, the war would have been over. Triggering the elections High Ridge put off and seating the San Martino peers.

Your overlooking public sentiment if KGIV is on the throne, he would likely-figuratively speaking-depopulated Haven plowed the ground with salt and then nuke it into a billiard ball to get any stray microbes.

saber964 wrote:Your overlooking public sentiment if KGIV is on the throne, he would likely-figuratively speaking-depopulated Haven plowed the ground with salt and then nuke it into a billiard ball to get any stray microbes.

We haven't really seen enough of Roger to consider his likely reaction. All we have is the reasonable expectation that he'd want to pursue his mother's killers. But we don't know how prepared he is for succession, who his informal allies and connections are, what his professional accomplishments are and his actual reputation. After all, he doesn't even expect to succeed for around two centuries!

It's a situation Elizabeth herself has been in - her own parent-monarch was also assassinated... and she could do very little about it at the time, despite burning desires to personally duel the Manticoran traitors involved.

I did take into consideration public sentiment, albeit without mentioning it. You'll note the third outcome where Roger can do whatever he likes because Cromarty is there to give him a slim Lords majority.

One of the big points of having a non-elected legislative chamber is its resistance to public sentiment. It's a trait the Lords have occasionally demonstrated, whether the outcome was bad or good for the Kingdom. Indeed, they were able to delay a declaration of war, despite enormous support from the Crown, Government, Commons and public to go on the offensive, upon the strongest recommendations of the Admiralty.

munroburton wrote:

saber964 wrote:Your overlooking public sentiment if KGIV is on the throne, he would likely-figuratively speaking-depopulated Haven plowed the ground with salt and then nuke it into a billiard ball to get any stray microbes.

We haven't really seen enough of Roger to consider his likely reaction. All we have is the reasonable expectation that he'd want to pursue his mother's killers. But we don't know how prepared he is for succession, who his informal allies and connections are, what his professional accomplishments are and his actual reputation. After all, he doesn't even expect to succeed for around two centuries!

It's a situation Elizabeth herself has been in - her own parent-monarch was also assassinated... and she could do very little about it at the time, despite burning desires to personally duel the Manticoran traitors involved.

I did take into consideration public sentiment, albeit without mentioning it. You'll note the third outcome where Roger can do whatever he likes because Cromarty is there to give him a slim Lords majority.

One of the big points of having a non-elected legislative chamber is its resistance to public sentiment. It's a trait the Lords have occasionally demonstrated, whether the outcome was bad or good for the Kingdom. Indeed, they were able to delay a declaration of war, despite enormous support from the Crown, Government, Commons and public to go on the offensive, upon the strongest recommendations of the Admiralty.

Given Elizabeth's experiences, I can't see her allowing Roger to sit idly by and not experience what running the Star Empire really means, in the event something happens to her - she knows Haven isn't above dirty tricks - heck that paranoia was what kept her from rationally accepting that Haven might really want to go to the bargaining table and accept outright that Haven had assassinated Weber and attempted to kill Berry and Honor after Hassan. And We've seen that Roger (and Rivka) have their own relationship with Honor, so I doubt he doesn't have a similar relationship with Elizabeth's other advisors.

We'll never know, but I dare say he was prepared (which is not necessarily the same as being ready, mind you) to accept the Throne if Elizabeth was killed.

I figure by now Elizabeth has been bringing Roger into at least some of the same briefings that she upon a time, attended in her own role as Heir.

He may not be invited, or simply attends all the same briefings, but he's almost definitely being brought into enough to help ease him into politics. After all, that was one thing the Crown of Manticore has been learning over the years, getting that early experience and horse-trading for the Heir to get favors to use later.


He also may not have been fully briefed on what happened to make Elizabeth so violently anti-Haven, but that's a bit of an air-ball. She might have, but it'd have been off the screen, and by his calmly still putting his wedding plans while Pritchart was there, almost makes it seem that he wasn't ever told.

Bear in mind Roger could be in his mid or late twenties at his wedding. The end of Operation Buttercup occured nine years prior to that.

IMO, it's more likely he was in his early or even mid thirties, but it's conceivable Roger was only seventeen or so when Operation Hassan happened. Barely older than Elizabeth, who couldn't prevent the Peep invasion of San Martin.

munroburton wrote:IMO, it's more likely he was in his early or even mid thirties, but it's conceivable Roger was only seventeen or so when Operation Hassan happened. Barely older than Elizabeth, who couldn't prevent the Peep invasion of San Martin.

Lets's just say he would be in a somewhat stronger position from a military point of view.

Somtaaw wrote:I figure by now Elizabeth has been bringing Roger into at least some of the same briefings that she upon a time, attended in her own role as Heir.

He may not be invited, or simply attends all the same briefings, but he's almost definitely being brought into enough to help ease him into politics. After all, that was one thing the Crown of Manticore has been learning over the years, getting that early experience and horse-trading for the Heir to get favors to use later.


He also may not have been fully briefed on what happened to make Elizabeth so violently anti-Haven, but that's a bit of an air-ball. She might have, but it'd have been off the screen, and by his calmly still putting his wedding plans while Pritchart was there, almost makes it seem that he wasn't ever told.

****** *

He also may not have been fully briefed on what happened to make Elizabeth so violently anti-Haven, but that's a bit of an air-ball. She might have, but it'd have been off the screen, and by his calmly still putting his wedding plans while Pritchart was there, almost makes it seem that he wasn't ever told.

That's a thought-provoking thought.

I wonder if he actually was told. Wouldn't he have a moral right to be told, or Elizabeth a moral and familial responsibility to inform him? I've always assumed that Eloise's revelations would become public knowledge. Though now that you've brought it to the front of my temporal lobe (or wherever the sh*t I think of begins its stink), I realize that that may not have been realistic or politically feasible. In the face of forging that particular alliance, as unlikely as it already was "all around," too many divulgent facts could have derailed that train. Those facts still could throw a monkey wrench into that alliance.

Now that I may be thinking clearer, IIRC, everyone in the Winton family was not exposed to that can of worms anyways.

Need to know basis?

Another rather profound turning point was when the Peeps killed Courvosier. That one deed made it personal to Honor. In fact, I often wondered what course things would have taken had Honor gotten back in-system and the Peeps hadn't attacked yet. Perhaps held off for another couple of days.

Honor may have been on her way back to Manticore when the Peeps attacked, had they waited a few days. Remember, she was headed back to Grayson loaded for bear. Ready to give the upstart chauvinistic Grayson pigs a piece of her mind. I always wondered how that scenario would have played itself out. She found out that her crew were mishandled, sexually assaulted and disrespected. Honor doesn't take too kindly to someone bullying her crew.

When Honor got back and found Courvosier dead, the Peeps had already lost - they just didn't know it yet. The Graysons might not ever have had a chance to see what a woman can do - especially a Queen's officer.

The Peeps created a turning point that sewed the souls of two polities together over one martyr.

I'm going to suggest the Battle of Hades. Why?

1. It showed up the Pierre/Saint-Just administration as outright liars, with their faked footage of Honor's death and their BS about Ransom's death, plus Amos Parnell's resurrection. I believe this to be the root of the revolution that culminated in Saint-Just's 10mm lobotomy. A revolution that put in power a Havenite government that was capable of making peace.

2. The "return from the dead" made Honor Manticore's Joan of Arc, their warrior goddess (and a Duchess, letting her influence policy at higher levels). Even Jeremy X gloated over how it changed the whole equation. A huge black eye for Haven and a morale boost for the Manty Alliance.

3. The liberated Parnell's visit to Earth triggered off Helen Zilwicki's kidnapping, which resulted in both the eventual Queen Berry I of Torch (without whom Torch might not have made it) and the Cachat-Zilwicki black ops team that exposed the Mesan Alignment. It also got Cathy Montaigne back to the Star Kingdom, where she redirected the Liberal Party.

4. The return of Jesus Ramirez to San Martin after his liberation from Hades led to his Presidency, which led to San Martin petitioning to join the Star Kingdom, which set the precedent for the Star Empire when the Talbott Cluster wanted to join up.

5. The liberated officers of several navies formed the core of the Protector's Own, which turned the tide at Sidemore, with the effects mentioned above, bringing the Andies in on Manticore's side. This also led to the partition of Silesia, ending an ongoing headache for Manticore.