Out of order snippet? WHAT out of order snippet?

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:It is a black mark on Manticore's record, but one which recedes with time as Manticore estabishes good relationships with liberated systems in the Verge and the Shell.

It appears to me that this incident has sharp short term inpact, but actually changes very little over the long haul.

You should go to Derry in Northern Ireland and tell them all about how Bloody Sunday was just a one-time event and really has no long-term significance.

What he said.

I kinda expected the reaction I got to that one. Maybe I even deserved it...

But... I think that it would be more damaging if it were a pattern of behavior than as a one time incident. A pattern conditions people to begin to predict what happens next. So if Manticore screws up by the numbers in other contexts, it isn't long before what is a single black mark becomes a bad reputation. But if Manticore consistently deals fairly with others, then over time the incident recedes into the background, especially for people who weren't on the scene and stand to benefit from GA policies.

Then there is the question as to who has done what to whom. Ask yourself who has the better reputation now...Manticore or Mesa. Certain segments of the Solarian League have forgotten all about genetic slavery and the butcher's bill Mesa has racked up over the centuries. But there are many others around the galaxy who are going to be less prone to automatically assume that assertions coming out of Mesa must be gospel truth. Then too, those folks who have been under the transstellar/OFS thumb are probably going to be pretty much immune to League propaganda.

As for the bloody Sunday incident, it was something that was part of an ongoing pattern of behavior that for the Irish was all too predictable and reinforced a reputation that the Brits already had. Did it hurt the Brits reputation? Obviously enough it didn't help it any and further blackened it in Ireland. But for everyone else the incident did recede and came to be understood as part of the ongoing conflict with the IRA whose reputation was at least as bad as the Brits for anyone not involved in the conflict.

That is really my point. Unless the bombings become understood as a pattern of predictable behavior, Manticore gets a black mark and a short term hit to its reputation for most of the galaxy. Except for that portion of the League that has an ax to grind, and of course, the ruling class on Mesa who will remember vividly for a long time, the incident soon begins to recede.

Then too, only David really knows the answer to the next question. Is the Alignment eventually exposed for what it is and does it ever come out that the Alignment is resposible for all the bombings on Mesa? I would think that would change the equation altogether.

Don

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We've been told, repeatedly, the only thing that the Sollies agree on is the EEE. There is about to be a period of the Solarian League disintegrating followed by a new web of alliances forming up. Basically, if Manticore can't beat the rap somehow, the only thing the former Solly worlds will agree on is killing the GA leadership. There goes the plan to make friends out of Solly worlds.

Also, I can't imagine any planet will surrender to Manticore in the near future. Similarly, M.A.D. may make a sudden reappearance.

Worst case scenario is Beowulf turns on Manticore for the EEE violation. Beowulf is making Manticore's missiles. "Oops".

Well, that's not really the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is some of the Mesa SDF, was off doing exercises and manages to rig up a bunch of stealthy missiles and systematically bombards every last one of Manticore's worlds from a few light months out. They could even time the bombardment, so the shots all hit relatively close together.

n7axw wrote:I kinda expected the reaction I got to that one. Maybe I even deserved it...

But... I think that it would be more damaging if it were a pattern of behavior than as a one time incident.

[snip]

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I love kzt's response. "You should go to Derry and ...". Brilliant, heh.
Still: I have to side with n7axw here. For the Northern Ireland parallel to work Mesa would have to equal Derry and The League would have to equal Ireland.

In the broadest strokes one could make that case I guess. But there are so many differences that the equation does not really add up IMO.

First Mesa is not part of the League. Second Mesa has always had a bad reputation. Third there is the minor fact that the Bloody Sunday did happen but Mike's alleged bombardment of Mesa did not. And very important - to me at least - is n7axw's pointing out that this alleged bombardment by Manticore does not fit a perceived pattern - contrary to the Northern Ireland situation.

In my opinion a better comparison would be the the Katyn - massacer of WWII.

The Soviets did it but blamed it on Germany. The propaganda did work - for a time. In the end it bit them on the ass though. (And in that case the propaganda actually did fit a pattern since Germany did commit all kinds of war crimes in other situations though not that one.) Since Manticore's supposed bombardment of Mesa does not fit a pattern I suspect this lie will bite the Alignment on the ass even sooner.

There is the problem that the Alignments existence is highly dubious at this point of course (from the POV of most of the Solarian Public I mean). That's the biggest ace of the 'Manticore did it!' faction IMO. Once that card is gone though the 'bite on the ass' part will come pretty fast I think.

Bruno Behrends wrote: [SNIP]
First Mesa is not part of the League. Second Mesa has always had a bad reputation. Third there is the minor fact that the Bloody Sunday did happen but Mike's alleged bombardment of Mesa did not. And very important - to me at least - is n7axw's pointing out that this alleged bombardment by Manticore does not fit a perceived pattern - contrary to the Northern Ireland situation.

In my opinion a better comparison would be the the Katyn - massacer of WWII.

The Soviets did it but blamed it on Germany. The propaganda did work - for a time. In the end it bit them on the ass though. (And in that case the propaganda actually did fit a pattern since Germany did commit all kinds of war crimes in other situations though not that one.) Since Manticore's supposed bombardment of Mesa does not fit a pattern I suspect this lie will bite the Alignment on the ass even sooner.

There is the problem that the Alignments existence is highly dubious at this point of course (from the POV of most of the Solarian Public I mean). That's the biggest ace of the 'Manticore did it!' faction IMO. Once that card is gone though the 'bite on the ass' part will come pretty fast I think.

From the SL general public population Manticore lied about their diplomatic correspondence with Haven. They supported the Audubon Ballroom in Green Pines. They removed their MM from Solly Space, they captured "neutral" and SL WHJs, inhibiting free trade. They coerced Beowulf to deny Chen's SDs access to their WHJ thus preventing aid to Filareta. And Byng and Crandall (yes they gloss over acts of war against neobarbs from beyond the fringe). They coerced Beowulf to secede from the SL, and now they pull an EEE on Mesa! How much more before it looks like a pattern?

runsforcelery wrote:..snip..
Having said that, the "background noise" of the news coverage is very much a factor in the book. The narrative in the SL is shaped far more by the information coming out of Old Chicago than it is by news coming in from other planets. Think of it as the way that hyper-frenzy news coverage focuses on "inside the Beltway" events here in the US right now. There's a heck of a lot of other stuff going on in the world, but the news cycle is totally dominated by politics and it seems that every single non-political story somehow gets tweaked around until it is a political story. That's the way the interstellar news cycle in the SL is driven. There's even an in-universe term for it: "inside the Kuiper."

So it's just another facet of the SL navel gazing going on which we have seen on other occasions.

runsforcelery wrote:What makes O'Hanrahan unique is that she's managed to build an enormous following while rejecting the official line. She's won her spurs as an investigative reporter who is not simply independent but fiercely independent, and she has (literally) risked her life to cover dangerous stories. She isn't the only independent reporter in the League. She's simply one of the best --- some would say the best -- and she's the only one in her league who happens to be on Mesa at the moment. That's what makes her so critical to how the story goes down in the League. There's not enough time for her to be a truly significant element in Uncompromising, but over the long haul, she's in a position to do the GA a lot of harm or a lot of good.

And depending on how the AM sees its priorities, she'll pick one or the other to do.

And if she picks the wrong one she'll lose credibility.

Bruno Behrends wrote:

n7axw wrote:I kinda expected the reaction I got to that one. Maybe I even deserved it...

But... I think that it would be more damaging if it were a pattern of behavior than as a one time incident.

[snip]

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I love kzt's response. "You should go to Derry and ...". Brilliant, heh.
Still: I have to side with n7axw here. For the Northern Ireland parallel to work Mesa would have to equal Derry and The League would have to equal Ireland.

In the broadest strokes one could make that case I guess. But there are so many differences that the equation does not really add up IMO.

First Mesa is not part of the League. Second Mesa has always had a bad reputation. Third there is the minor fact that the Bloody Sunday did happen but Mike's alleged bombardment of Mesa did not. And very important - to me at least - is n7axw's pointing out that this alleged bombardment by Manticore does not fit a perceived pattern - contrary to the Northern Ireland situation.

In my opinion a better comparison would be the the Katyn - massacer of WWII.

The Soviets did it but blamed it on Germany. The propaganda did work - for a time. In the end it bit them on the ass though. (And in that case the propaganda actually did fit a pattern since Germany did commit all kinds of war crimes in other situations though not that one.) Since Manticore's supposed bombardment of Mesa does not fit a pattern I suspect this lie will bite the Alignment on the ass even sooner.

There is the problem that the Alignments existence is highly dubious at this point of course (from the POV of most of the Solarian Public I mean). That's the biggest ace of the 'Manticore did it!' faction IMO. Once that card is gone though the 'bite on the ass' part will come pretty fast I think.

I think there are a couple of problems with your otherwise very good analysis.

You’re right that Mesa isn’t part of the League and that Mesa has always had a bad reputation. In terms of League reactions and long-term memory, so it’s a little more like going to Pittsburgh and asking someone on the street about Bloody Sunday.

You’re on a little shakier ground though when you point out that “this alleged bombardment by Manticore does not fit a perceived pattern.” In the Fringe and Verge, that’s certainly true. In the case of the League, it really doesn’t matter a lot. The League doesn’t actually know all that much about Manticore, except for those portions of it directly involved in interstellar commerce. Which is to say, a segment of the population pretty much equivalent to the percentage of the current US population directly involved in trans-oceanic commerce. Aside from those people, Manticore tends to be one of those third-world (or perhaps second-world) countries somewhere a long, long way away, with the added advantage that what they have heard about it probably had something to do with “damned Manty merchant marine” or “arrogant demands” from Manticore. Unless they’ve done a fair amount of research of their own, most of what they know about Manticore is going to be what’s come to them through the media (which, as we all know, never has a nation-centric bias) and what “everyone knows” on the League’s equivalent of social media. Moreover, this isn’t just Manticore. There’s a substantial Havenite component in Tenth Fleet, and if anyone goes and looks for it — or if any newsies want to bring it up — there is plenty of evidence of “iron heel” responses coming out of Nouveau Paris back when Haven was the People’s Republic of Haven . . . all of three or four years ago.

My point is that in the Core, where policy decisions are made and where the only public opinion the Mandarins worry about is formed, Manticore is only one more neobarb, and one which is more uppity and arrogant than most, for that matter. And Manticore’s previous record isn’t going to be as big a factor in that arena as it might be elsewhere.

Now, I realize that we’re talking about the long-term consequences, not just the immediate ones. But by the time the truth starts overtaking initial impressions — and assuming that there ever is general agreement on what the “truth” is — that initial impression will have set pretty deep and hard in the League. Maybe not so much in the Fringe and the Verge, but definitely in the League. It’s going to be one of those “everyone knows” things that the intellectually lazy never question.

Your analogy about the Katyn Forest massacre has a certain degree of point, but let’s not forget that the Soviets who got bitten ultimately by their own propaganda were pretty bad actors in their own right. In fact, horrible as the Katyn Forest was, compared to the total death toll of Stalinist Russia, it was barely a statistical blip. The extent to which the Mandarins are ultimately discredited — and to which they are perceived as the originators of the “Manticore did it” interpretation — will/may have a bearing on how likely future Solarian opinion is to accept that it was all a lie. And the fact that the Mandarins didn’t, in fact, originate that narrative, whereas the Soviets clearly did in order to cover their own crime, will also have a bearing. Unless, of course, the Alignment is dragged into the open and Manticore and its Allies manage to convince the galaxy at large that it truly is an Evil Conspiracy™.

That, alas, may not be as easy in-universe as it is for me to convince the reader of it, and the longer this lingers — and, as someone else has pointed out, especially if the fact that Anton and Victor did, in fact, unlock the nuke used in the Green Pines bombing comes out — the more damningly credible it will seem and the more opportunity it will have to sink into the collective consciousness with the impossible-to-erase durability of Bloody Sunday.

It’s true that outside Ireland, Bloody Sunday isn’t exactly burned into the memory of everyone you speak to. In fact, I’d venture to say that you’d have to explain what Bloody Sunday was to the majority of people in the US before you could discuss it with them. That isn’t to downplay the enormous historical significance of the event; it’s simply that on the other side of the Atlantic, after this many years, that significance simply doesn’t even cross the mental horizon of most Americans.

The deaths of multiple millions of human beings in the violation of an edict the Solarian League Navy has a constitutional mandate to enforce is going to loom rather larger in the Core Worlds’ thinking and collective memory, I suspect.

Pretty much my point all around... Bloody Sunday is vivid and immediate in Ireland. Go to Japan and the result of bringing the subject up would be ... eh??? Now imagine traveling half way around the galaxy.

Secondly, the League itself has been a very bad actor and the alignment even worse. Imagine what happens to the credibility of its finger pointing when that comes out.

I reiterate my final point. Manticore's reputation will depend more upon its pattern of behavior than it does one incident. As for the so called pattern mentioned in one of the previous posts is all I got to say is that there is such a thing as ax grinding and the truth will eventually be outed.

Don

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runsforcelery wrote:
snip
That, alas, may not be as easy in-universe as it is for me to convince the reader of it, and the longer this lingers — and, as someone else has pointed out, especially if the fact that Anton and Victor did, in fact, unlock the nuke used in the Green Pines bombing comes out — the more damningly credible it will seem and the more opportunity it will have to sink into the collective consciousness with the impossible-to-erase durability of Bloody Sunday.
snip

Hi! New here, though been lurking for awhile! This remeinds me of something that crossed my mind when reading SoV; will anyone in the GA make the connection of Gamma Center being blown by a self-destruct charge by a high-ranking member of the MAlign (which Anton and Victor certainly know!) and the detonations witnessed at the end of SoV? Seems like it might resonate, especially since the Terrible Twosome are on Mesa when the latter happen!

Bruno Behrends wrote:First Mesa is not part of the League. Second Mesa has always had a bad reputation. Third there is the minor fact that the Bloody Sunday did happen but Mike's alleged bombardment of Mesa did not. And very important - to me at least - is n7axw's pointing out that this alleged bombardment by Manticore does not fit a perceived pattern - contrary to the Northern Ireland situation.

Green Pines did. This was totally caused by Manticorans.