Out of order snippet? WHAT out of order snippet?

RFC, I don't think we are contradicting each other. You are focused on the time table for Houdini whereas my thought is more on why the Alignment is outed to start with.

Don

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While I think things should (possibly were) expedited for pulling onion personnel out of Mesa after Monica, there was no need for the bloody mayhem of Houdini, until Filaretas' Fiasco and word of the formation of the GA.

Prior to this while Mesa was on the list of boils to lance, both Manticore and Haven had other priorities, and the SL would have reacted badly to either one dropping a fleet into Mesa.

Eagleeye wrote:

Lunan wrote:Which 2 projects? Just out of idle curiosity you understand

If I had to guess - Safehold is one of them; and maybe Bahzell is the other. Certainly not Multiverse; else he had mentioned Joelle. Or so I'd think, at least.

Going by his posted schedule, I would say you are right about Safehold, the other might be either the Honorverse novella that's been snippeted, or corrections on A Call to Vengeance, which is due out next March.

If I had to guess - Safehold is one of them; and maybe Bahzell is the other. Certainly not Multiverse; else he had mentioned Joelle. Or so I'd think, at least.[/quote]

Going by his posted schedule, I would say you are right about Safehold, the other might be either the Honorverse novella that's been snippeted, or corrections on A Call to Vengeance, which is due out next March.[/quote]

I believe the novella is part of a collection due out this spring. My guess is that it is Safehold and the next in the Sword of the South novels.

It hadn't really occurred to me, but this is probably going to be how the bad guys snatch defeat from the jaws of victory isn't it? They've basically won. The League will disintegrate and Manticore/GA is gonna look like the ones responsible for the nukes. That reporter should have no trouble spinning a story that makes Manticore/GA the only one who could fit.

But what if there was an unknown terrorist group mass murdering civilians that definitively wasn't tied to the GA? What if say, a bio-weapon slices through the GA? And it hits the leadership? Or something similar. Then even the most cynical observer would have to conclude that Manticore isn't the only mass murderer around. But if there is another killer that means Manticore could be innocent! Maybe the other mass murderer set those nukes! Plus it proves Manticore right about someone being out to get them!

Even worse the MAlign could fumble the attempt and get caught outright!

quite possibly a cat wrote:What if say, a bio-weapon slices through the GA? And it hits the leadership? Or something similar.

[SL Newsie mode]
It is indeed fortunate that the Murderous Cretins of the so-called "Grand Alliance" have such poor safeguards around their bio-weapons facilities. It is not known how or where the killer bio-weapon escaped from, but it at least had the good sense to strike the leadership of the murderous scum who devastated Mesa.
[/SL Newsie mode]

quite possibly a cat wrote:
snip
But what if there was an unknown terrorist group mass murdering civilians that definitively wasn't tied to the GA? What if say, a bio-weapon slices through the GA? And it hits the leadership? Or something similar. Then even the most cynical observer would have to conclude that Manticore isn't the only mass murderer around. But if there is another killer that means Manticore could be innocent! Maybe the other mass murderer set those nukes! Plus it proves Manticore right about someone being out to get them!
snip

Oyster Bay comes to mind as an example of another (unknown) party, after all if it was Haven there would be no need to form the GA, but with the exception of a few low placed people the SLN & Mandarins don't seem to want to admit there could be another party involved.

quite possibly a cat wrote:It hadn't really occurred to me, but this is probably going to be how the bad guys snatch defeat from the jaws of victory isn't it? They've basically won. The League will disintegrate and Manticore/GA is gonna look like the ones responsible for the nukes. That reporter should have no trouble spinning a story that makes Manticore/GA the only one who could fit.

But what if there was an unknown terrorist group mass murdering civilians that definitively wasn't tied to the GA? What if say, a bio-weapon slices through the GA? And it hits the leadership? Or something similar. Then even the most cynical observer would have to conclude that Manticore isn't the only mass murderer around. But if there is another killer that means Manticore could be innocent! Maybe the other mass murderer set those nukes! Plus it proves Manticore right about someone being out to get them!

Even worse the MAlign could fumble the attempt and get caught outright!

i

And there could be a race of flying pigs coming in.

For a "last book in the arc", the idea would be a stretch.

My guess is that Henke will go out of her way to interview O'Hanrahan with a treecat present. Even more to the point, however, there might be a Ballroom person or two in the room.

ldwechsler wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:It hadn't really occurred to me, but this is probably going to be how the bad guys snatch defeat from the jaws of victory isn't it? They've basically won. The League will disintegrate and Manticore/GA is gonna look like the ones responsible for the nukes. That reporter should have no trouble spinning a story that makes Manticore/GA the only one who could fit.

But what if there was an unknown terrorist group mass murdering civilians that definitively wasn't tied to the GA? What if say, a bio-weapon slices through the GA? And it hits the leadership? Or something similar. Then even the most cynical observer would have to conclude that Manticore isn't the only mass murderer around. But if there is another killer that means Manticore could be innocent! Maybe the other mass murderer set those nukes! Plus it proves Manticore right about someone being out to get them!

Even worse the MAlign could fumble the attempt and get caught outright!

i

And there could be a race of flying pigs coming in.

For a "last book in the arc", the idea would be a stretch.

My guess is that Henke will go out of her way to interview O'Hanrahan with a treecat present. Even more to the point, however, there might be a Ballroom person or two in the room.

Depends on which arc we're talking about, doesn't it?

Do remember that no less than three original arcs hot kinda fused together, here, thanks to the "But She Didn't Die Event"!

Not sayin' you're, just . . . sayin'.

ldwechsler wrote:My guess is that Henke will go out of her way to interview O'Hanrahan with a treecat present. Even more to the point, however, there might be a Ballroom person or two in the room.

That sounds like a good way to make things much, much worse. Kidnapping a respected reporter and then showing her that Henke is conspiring with a terrorist organization? And then trying to coerce a statement out of her? That won't do shit on the "looking innocent" front. At that point you might as well just claim your responsible and hope you get credit Chutzpah.

You could probably get a voluntary interview except, that's not going to help you at all! To start with, the facts point to the GA. I'm I remembering correctly Anton Zilwicki was the one who removed the tracking on the Green Pines bomb. Worse, one of the nukes was set off by the GA. Another nuke was set off by someone working with the GA. Then the nuclear bombs stopped until GA agents returned to Mesa.

The GA is in fact guilty of nuking Mesa. Honestly, their best defense is probably to claim Anton and Victor went rogue and execute them.

I suppose Henke could attempt a full on cover-up. Except if I got the right impression of her, she's much more likely to just go with honesty and openness. Isn't that what she did after defeating Byng? Plus, Manticore really doesn't have a good culture for covering stuff up.