Brigade XO wrote:[quote=
Actually, I think his desire to see the final MAlign victory in his "prolonged" life-span would lead to a a temper tantrum on the same level as the one that led Leonard Detweiler to stomp off the Mesa where, "Beowulf can't tell Me what to do."
Albrecht is horrible intelligent but not very wise. He's already demonstrated a tendency to go off half-cocked in pushing up Oyster Bay and Houdini when his half-baked plans responding to the Manticoran discovery of the Lynx Terminus. A rolling on the floor with feet kicking tantrum wouldn't surprise me greatly, although another half-baked plan to salvage the Great Plan is more likely -- including using the Lenny Dets to further the Renaissance Factor's progress.
In thinking about this, it occurs to me that Albrecht Detweiller's biggest blind spot is that he's too used to playing against an opponent who's oblivious to the fact that there's a war on! He's too dependent on the opposition not picking up on random clues. Once he unleashes the Lenny Dets, a few mysterious cases where a systen's infrastructure has been wiped out are going to start adding up in people's minds.
I believe that Sun Tzu had a paragraph or so about that.[/quote]
==========
The Alignment has only cared it is not technically guilty of an EE violation to keep somebody (particularly the SL) from getting interested or motivated to search them out because they committed an EE violation. Remember, Grayson and Manticore are already going to be searching long and hard to find out who hit their orbitals, getting the SL (or any body else) interested in finding the culprits (at this point the Mandarin's at least could not actualy care which is at best short sighted of them given the scope and technology of the attack) because it was an EE violation.
You will recall that the Alignment doesn't actual care how many Normals are going to be killed in the fighting and chaos of the events leading up to and then the breakup of the SL?
THEY DO NOT CARE.
Given that the GA now appears to be massivly changing the direction of the Alighment plans and truly screwing with all manner of Alignment's timetable, will there come a point where the Alignment will just go ahead and try to do more than just take out the governments of the major impediments?
Oyster Bay was designed and planned to cripple at least one major power in the orchestrated destruction of the SL and allow for the rise of the RF and implimentation of the Alignment's policies, plans, and control of the destiny of humanity. The original target seems to have been People's Republic of Haven but that got changed. Manticore didn't get taken over (how unsuporting and uncooperative of them) and the targets were changed on the fly were advanced to take out Manticore and Grayson's infrastuctue but the attack was both much earlier and much smaller than planned because of the timing and the tech imbalance.
What is to keep the Alignment from changeing the operational plan and timing again? Ok, Houdini has come off- so far- mostly to plan but there are loose ends although the Alignment doen't know about those yet. Given the track record of Manticore and the restored Republic of Haven, it is POSSIBLE that Mesa will actually become a threat to the Alignment as the surviving government (old and we presume new) and emerging Sr. officials (like the Peaceforce General) have to deal with realization that they were less than pawns and obviously expendable is someone else's plan.
So, run another early and preemptive strike on more than just orbital infrastructure of a number of systems/polities and include at least one EE level strike on "major" planets involved. Sure, use the Sharks and the 1st Lenny Dets that come off the yards if you can get them fast enough but at least the Sharks and probably the Ghosts and any other Spider Drive ships even if you have to strap the ordnance to the hulls. And, only one ship per system this time since you aren't going to wipe out the orbitals, you are going to throw a weapon at the planet. Manticore, Sphinx, Gryphon, Grayson, Sol. The Aldermani capital and at least one nodal headquarters, Erwhon, Haven and two or three major planets of RH, Beowulf, 6 or 7 other major SL systems that are actually at level (political/tech) to challange THE PLAN going forward. Leave out the dozen RF seed systems, they should be nominally "small" enough to not get hit in a strike on the primary systems of Haven, Manticore, Grayson, Aldermani Empire, Erwhon, and 5 major SL systems plus Sol.
There are more than "hints" out there. The SL even acknowledges that "someone" with tech beyond anybody they know of , INCLUDING Manticore, hit at least the Manticore system. It wasn't Haven. NOBODY is taking responsibilty for it. While they might not even recognize Grayson as a "player" in the Haven/Manticore war (big mistake on the SL's part) the must know that Grayson was also hit by the same type of weapons and tactics as Manticore.
Just how many militaries, scattered though human space and getting report or have observers on what has been happening out in the Haven Quadrant have to be hit between the eyes with a 2x4 before it sinks in that SOMEBODY is playing with some really new stuff and it isn't anybody that anybody knows of and that really smells.
Sure, Manticore and Haven have broadcast this Alignment theory which is being ridiculed by the Mandarin's and the tame Solly press. But if EVERYBODY who is fighting ANYBODY now or in the last five years has not either been hit by nor used these weapons and stealth ability, it would seem that there is a NEW PLAYER out there with massive resources and tech that nobody- so far- can detect until they are struck.
It has got to make someone wonder. They can't all be as thick as Solly Admirals or the Sr. League bureaucracy.[/quote]
In addition, I continue to be surprised that no one in the RMN high command suspected that the attack might have been an incursion of the heretofore unknown Invincible Empire of the Orglon species.
