Houdini/MA

Itis not a manner of hiding, but causing the different powers to come into conflict with each other, weakening. So that by the time the alignment is ready, their assembled and prepared forces can steam roll any target and obstacle.
One of their objectives would likely be to control or influence the wormhole terminii across all of known human space. If they can control them, they can influence so much of human space. Look at the power and influence of manticore.

SYED wrote:Itis not a manner of hiding, but causing the different powers to come into conflict with each other, weakening. So that by the time the alignment is ready, their assembled and prepared forces can steam roll any target and obstacle.
One of their objectives would likely be to control or influence the wormhole terminii across all of known human space. If they can control them, they can influence so much of human space. Look at the power and influence of manticore.

And that points the way to when the MA is able, their first objective will be Manticore and the wormhole junction. Seeing as they will find nothing in Mesa regarding the ships and weapons that were used in the Yatawa strike, there is all the more reason for the GA to intensify the search to reduce the time the MA have to finish building and working up the ships and weapons the GA know the MA must be building somewhere.

Given the amount of time it would take the SL to come up with ships and weapons that could take the war to the GA, the biggest threat to the GA is from the MA.

If I was the MA, I'd have left lots of poorly hidden evidence behind as to who was involved. All of which is at the core lies, designed to make the Manties look like arrogant thugs to the rest of the SL.

Who knows? Maybe there _is_ lots of poorly hidden evidence - designed to make _Haven_ look etc. They, after all, were the anticipated patsies, and that sort of thing is best done over an extended period, so that the fakes are naturally aged. Wouldn't _that_ be embarrassing. Might explain why they let Janice go to town on the place.

Both possibilities, though, assume that Houdini was an essential element, and everything I've seen suggests that it was a fall-back option. Or fall out option, in Albrecht's case.

kzt wrote:If I was the MA, I'd have left lots of poorly hidden evidence behind as to who was involved. All of which is at the core lies, designed to make the Manties look like arrogant thugs to the rest of the SL.

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Does anyone else find the need for Houdini a little lacking? I mean they had Darius for decades if not centuries why not move all of their sensitive research and development projects there? Having any research facility that deals with exclusively MA research on Mesa seems like you would be asking for trouble. If all of your sensitive leadership, construction, research and development and personnel were at Darius rather than Mesa would there be anything for the Intelligence team of Zilwicki and Cachet to find and bring back to shed light on the existence of the MA? It seems that for a long term conspiracy that seems to cover all of it's tracks they keep on screwing up on the most basic of things and improvising when improvisation is not needed.
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After finishing SoV I say YES. I did not think so much after the last book but "You ain't taking me alive, copper"

I will never understand the mind set of people that think they can get away with their criminal actions...
There is always a loophole and another name for loophole is noose.

"I did nothing wrong with my university!!" "Here is my check for $25 million"

Don't look now but they are gaining on you

The thing is the discovery of the Lynx terminii really undercut their plans. It brought mantie influence and reach far closer to Mesa, and forced a whole ne situation to form. If the mantie were kept further away from Mesa, the plan would have succeeded.

SYED wrote:The thing is the discovery of the Lynx terminii really undercut their plans. It brought mantie influence and reach far closer to Mesa, and forced a whole ne situation to form. If the mantie were kept further away from Mesa, the plan would have succeeded.

That was half of it. Once Manticore discovered the Lynx terminus, the MAlign wasted a lot of time trying to take it away from them, or busting up the Talbott Quadrant, or other stuff that wasn't guaranteed to work.

If they'd have started Houdini as soon as they got news of the Lynx terminus, they'd have had another five years to move people off of Mesa. That might actually have been enough, since the Lynx terminus was discovered sometime in 1917, and Detweiller gets the news about Simöes in 1922/06. That's a good five years to move about a 100,000 people off of Mesa without raising ripples.

As it was, they had only about 4 months between the "oh, shit" moment and when Tenth and Second fleet arrived.

Of course, that would't have been as exciting a story.

JohnRoth wrote:

SYED wrote:The thing is the discovery of the Lynx terminii really undercut their plans. It brought mantie influence and reach far closer to Mesa, and forced a whole ne situation to form. If the mantie were kept further away from Mesa, the plan would have succeeded.

That was half of it. Once Manticore discovered the Lynx terminus, the MAlign wasted a lot of time trying to take it away from them, or busting up the Talbott Quadrant, or other stuff that wasn't guaranteed to work.

If they'd have started Houdini as soon as they got news of the Lynx terminus, they'd have had another five years to move people off of Mesa. That might actually have been enough, since the Lynx terminus was discovered sometime in 1917, and Detweiller gets the news about Simöes in 1922/06. That's a good five years to move about a 100,000 people off of Mesa without raising ripples.

As it was, they had only about 4 months between the "oh, shit" moment and when Tenth and Second fleet arrived.

Of course, that would't have been as exciting a story.

Or, if they had just left well enough alone, nothing would gave happened. Manpower has been pumping out slaves for >400 years and Mesa has been the center for less than savory deals for that entire time... yet no one discussed sending task forces to eradicate them... until they actively started meddling with Manticore, and Talbott. If they hadn't futzed around in Talbott, and hadn't launched OB, no one would be fisvuss I ng send task forces against them.... except those wack jobs at Torch.

SYED wrote:The thing is the discovery of the Lynx terminii really undercut their plans. It brought mantie influence and reach far closer to Mesa, and forced a whole ne situation to form. If the mantie were kept further away from Mesa, the plan would have succeeded.

Yes! I agree... even the best plans, for the most worthy reason, can fall apart in the face of the unexpected.
Forcing the evacuation time line, made it possible that too many gaps have to be dealt with... a perfectly timed operation (like juggling chain saws)can be performed a million times... when someone tosses in a live barn cat and a raw egg

JohnRoth wrote:

SYED wrote:The thing is the discovery of the Lynx terminii really undercut their plans. It brought mantie influence and reach far closer to Mesa, and forced a whole ne situation to form. If the mantie were kept further away from Mesa, the plan would have succeeded.

That was half of it. Once Manticore discovered the Lynx terminus, the MAlign wasted a lot of time trying to take it away from them, or busting up the Talbott Quadrant, or other stuff that wasn't guaranteed to work.

If they'd have started Houdini as soon as they got news of the Lynx terminus, they'd have had another five years to move people off of Mesa. That might actually have been enough, since the Lynx terminus was discovered sometime in 1917, and Detweiller gets the news about Simöes in 1922/06. That's a good five years to move about a 100,000 people off of Mesa without raising ripples.

As it was, they had only about 4 months between the "oh, shit" moment and when Tenth and Second fleet arrived.

Of course, that would't have been as exciting a story.

I agree John... Detweillers continue to operate from a position of hubris and when they finally accepted that the wheels were falling off they panic and dropped too many pieces.