Any what if moments?

This particular dead horse has been so beaten that the horse in question should be as flat as a sheet of paper and be considered a fossil for how long we've been beating the shit out of it.

Fox2! wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:Actually, relative to Filerata's Folly, what I am really pointing at is "no way for the Mandarins to spin the defeat because Filerata is alive to testify".

Thoughts?

Not sure why Him being alive makes any difference, the other two that surrendered after the deaths of Bing and Crandall never stopped them spinning anything. Alternative truth seems to be their default position. The entire fake news industry is built to support and reinforce it. and the citizens of Old Earth are pretty clueless.

Send detailed tactical records from the Sollies' own computers and they'll get OpAn to spin them as slick forgeries.

Didn't the bomb in the Ops Officer's console destroy Filareta's Flag Bridge with no survivors?

Yeah, it did and Honor's laserheads finished the job of totaling Filareta's flagship. I doubt if there was enough left of anyone on the Flag Bridge to identify with a DNA swab.

Normally, I would think there would be duplicate records of communications and "log books" in the computers of the squadron and division Flagships. But then this wasn't a normal naval maneuver or operation.

robert132 wrote:Yeah, it did and Honor's laserheads finished the job of totaling Filareta's flagship. I doubt if there was enough left of anyone on the Flag Bridge to identify with a DNA swab.

Normally, I would think there would be duplicate records of communications and "log books" in the computers of the squadron and division Flagships. But then this wasn't a normal naval maneuver or operation.

Sorry had the Death Panel meeting about my wife today, been away from this for a while. I must have missed something. I thought we were playing WHAT IF: as in WHAT IF: Filareta survived? WHAT IF: His ship, therefore, had survived as well. (I mean unless he and his pinnace were off somewhere in the middle of a battle.) And WHAT IF:He and his records were sent to Sol just like Sigbee.

1) He and Crandall were already dead admirals walking after Bing went down in flames. Being on Old Earth did not prevent Rajani being nanoteched.
2)Wouldn't prevent them cleaning up Filareta too. Would have taken out Rajani probably on Mars instead of his place in OC.
3) and even WHAT IF:He did manage to end upon the carpet before the mandarins. He does what any good admiral does when he's caught with his hand in the cookie jar- he lies his @$$ off.

Changer of Worlds, Nightfall.

"S says EF authorized to move by SJ," it said. Only that much, but Esther McQueen felt as if a pulser dart had just hit her in the belly.
She'd known it was coming. It had been obvious for months that Saint-Just's suspicion had overcome his belief that they needed her skills, but she'd believed Pierre was wiser than that . . . at least where the military situation was concerned.
But maybe I only needed to believe that because I wasn't ready. The thought was unnaturally calm. I needed more time, because we're still not ready.

"Of course I'm improvising," she told him. "I didn't have much choice when you and Saint-Just decided I had to go, but I won't pretend that I had all of my own plans firmly in place." She shook her head. "I never thought Pierre would authorize my removal before we knew for certain that the Manties were on the ropes."
"What are you talking about?" Fontein demanded, and McQueen's eyebrows rose at the genuine surprise in his voice.
"Please, Citizen Commissioner," she said. "I won't pretend I was happy to learn that Saint-Just had authorized you to move against me, but I decided that I should consider that was only business, not personal. Under the circumstances, it's hardly necessary for you to try to pretend he hadn't, though."
"But he—" Fontein began, then cut himself off. He stared at her for several seconds, and then chuckled with absolutely no humor at all.
"I don't know why you think Oscar was planning to remove you any time soon," he told her, then waved one hand in the air as he saw her expression of disbelief. "Oh, I'm not saying that he hadn't decided you had to go, Citizen Secretary. I'm only saying that anything he and I discussed was at a very preliminary stage. The, ah, evidence preparing stage, one might say. In point of fact, I was instructed not to act against you in any other way without his specific authorization, because the Citizen Chairman hadn't authorized him to act."

The whole McQueen Coup Attempt, up to and including Bank Shot and all the deaths resulting from it, happened because of crossed wires about what Fontein had been authorised to do. Whoever "S" was, he kinda done goofed bad.


Whether McQueen would have managed to take out Saint-Just cleanly and/or take Pierre alive in the 'proper' version of her plan, we can't know, but given how well the improvised version worked, I'd probably assume it would have.

Would it have dramatically changed the result of the war in the short term? dunno.

I doubt it, because swapping Saint-Just for McQueen wouldn't have magically removed the MDMs and LACs from the manticoran fleet. Yes, the PN wouldn't have had its upper echelons gutted, but it was kind of losing anyway at that point. Statesec would have probably took the gutting instead, which frees up the statesec warships, and potentially some of home fleet, but whether it has enough to make a difference (against early-gen MDMs, maybe?)

More importantly, she almost certainly wouldn't have tried to launch Hassan, because she probably wouldn't have known the option was there (there's no indication Pierre and Saint-Just told her).

Which means that Cromarty isn't killed, and High Ridge and co don't get in.

Which, in turn, means that Honor and White Haven don't beached, the Erewhon alliance doesn't fall apart...

...and the RMIA doesn't get its big whack of funding to turn it into essentially a government money-launderer. So no-one finds the Lynx terminus yet.

...and Jeremy's opportunity to seize Congo never comes up, or at least - doesn't have RMN and SLN riding shotgun, doesn't have Berry to become head of state, and falls apart.

locarno24 wrote:...and the RMIA doesn't get its big whack of funding to turn it into essentially a government money-launderer. So no-one finds the Lynx terminus yet.

Manticore was looking for the seventh terminus quietly anyway. All the RMIA did was serve as a laundering front and PR sideshow for the High Ridge Government. It may actually have slowed down the project. Indeed, ACS Survey Command's equipment found the terminus during a routine beacon survey, with Admiral Haynesworth's cooperation. ACSSC was the RMIA's precedessor.

I believe they might have discovered the Lynx terminus earlier under Cromarty. Granted, only by a few weeks or months - insignificant. The idea to join Manticore originated within the Cluster(and from San Martin, we know Elizabeth & Cromarty were enthusiastic about expansion).

All other context difficult to apply, because a continuing Cromarty government would have responded to everything completely differently. Haven? Smashed into unconditional surrender with StateSec units hunted down ruthlessly. Erewhon? Backed up to the hilt, with Manpower expelled from Congo by squadrons instead of a single RMN heavy cruiser. Anderman and Silesia? Could go the same way, but without the dangerous skirmishing forced by the lack of sufficient instructions to Sidemore Station CO or continue as a stalemate.

WeirdlyWired wrote:


1) He and Crandall were already dead admirals walking after Bing went down in flames. Being on Old Earth did not prevent Rajani being nanoteched.

As perfect as the MA's plans were there is always a chance that there would be a slip up. If their chosen tool in this case Admiral Daniels had been in an accident of one sort or another prior to the attack the MA's plans would have likely fallen through.


And then there is the question at least in my mind of accidental activation. If I remember correctly, the MA had the ability to program simple instructions in their target so what if during one of their planning sessions the Admiral's nano's had been activated?

Sigs wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:


1) He and Crandall were already dead admirals walking after Bing went down in flames. Being on Old Earth did not prevent Rajani being nanoteched.

As perfect as the MA's plans were there is always a chance that there would be a slip up. If their chosen tool in this case Admiral Daniels had been in an accident of one sort or another prior to the attack the MA's plans would have likely fallen through.


And then there is the question at least in my mind of accidental activation. If I remember correctly, the MA had the ability to program simple instructions in their target so what if during one of their planning sessions the Admiral's nano's had been activated?

Ah, yes, shades of the ancient English pome. Things can always unravel, that they do not is more amazing than that they do not .. at least to me.

Seems the activation code is not something one would usually hear in normal conversation. And IIRC (though probably not) they used just-in-time delivery of the nano. Trying to oops proof it as much as possible.

What if : Instead of Young being court-martialed his family had managed to get Honor court-martialed?
IIRC ( and I admit I need to reread the series again ) a comment was made by Janecek that some people were sure the wrong captain was being tried.

How does this change the dynamics if Honor is found guilty?
Or after a long and bitterly fought trial not guilty?

WeirdlyWired wrote:

Ah, yes, shades of the ancient English pome. Things can always unravel, that they do not is more amazing than that they do not .. at least to me.

Seems the activation code is not something one would usually hear in normal conversation. And IIRC (though probably not) they used just-in-time delivery of the nano. Trying to oops proof it as much as possible.

The nanite activation probably required that they actually be in Manticore space. And that Filaretta had announced his decision to strike or withdraw.

Fox2! wrote:The nanite activation probably required that they actually be in Manticore space. And that Filaretta had announced his decision to strike or withdraw.

In the specific case of Filareta's Ops Officer:

The Cataphract pods had to be deployed; there would be no "GTH" option in place otherwise.

AND

There had to be an opposition force -- i.e. not an exercise.

AND

Filareta had to be on the verge of surrendering.

When those three conditions were met, the OPs officer triggered his "GTH" "Use 'em or lose 'em" option, which was keyed to a single "Big Red Button." The bomb was also wired to the same single "BRB" he was nano-programmed to press.


Other nano-programmed assassinations or suicides had similar complex Boolean conditions that had to be met that would be extremely unlikely to happen randomly.