Out of order snippet? WHAT out of order snippet?

quite possibly a cat wrote:

pappilon wrote:And I'm fairly certain those guys and gals have the expertise to determine KEW strikes from missile ones, from embedded charges from surface detonated charges.

Handing the investigation off to Mesa would be one tactic they could try. Since they were the victims they would have a really strong motive to make sure the guilty get punished, so they will be scrupulously honest! Then normal human biases will take over and they'll blame Manticore.

Or they'll be sure that Manticore did it, skip investigations and just straight up frame the Manties.

filbert wrote:How about a forensics team from the Solarian League . . . the Maya Sector, specifically?

The sector where the governor is protecting Torch? The sector allied with the people literally at war with Mesa?

Honestly, you probably could find an impartial team of investigators if you looked hard enough, but I doubt anyone would try and they probably won't uncover anything O'Hanrahan won't.

The thing that I think we are seeing of O'Hanrahan is that at the end of SOV she goes into Alpha line mode and she is going to trade on her reputation for honest impartiality to smear Manticore good and proper.

Don

-

From the Mesa Orbital Traffic thread

Vince wrote:
Pus all the Solarian League news dispatch boats that were there to cover the 'Ballroom attacks on Mesa' and Mesa's response to it (the massive attacks on the seccie's).

It strikes me that even though they are dispatch boats they would have been close enough to get good enough data to prove 10th fleet did not launch any missiles.

George J. Smith wrote:From the Mesa Orbital Traffic thread

Vince wrote:
Pus all the Solarian League news dispatch boats that were there to cover the 'Ballroom attacks on Mesa' and Mesa's response to it (the massive attacks on the seccie's).

It strikes me that even though they are dispatch boats they would have been close enough to get good enough data to prove 10th fleet did not launch any missiles.

It comes down to what the public hears. After all, the mandarins are expert at controlling the media. Michelle Henke can send official recordings out, other ships can confirm, but what will the public hear?

Obviously, the Manties will know O'Hanrahan is not telling the truth. And, yes, they can check her out with a treecat. But they might now actually know the right questions to ask...unless, of course, Anton and Victor were there.

Remember that Albrecht and his wife willingly sacrificed themselves (although why he was still on the planet seems very stronge) so I would expect the reporter to be ready as well.

O'Hanrahan was on the ground at the time of the Houdini cover up strikes, I would expect that at least some of those strikes would have been visible to her, so if she does come out and say that 10th fleet launched missiles then Mike will know she is not to be trusted and really want to interview her along with a few other SL reporters. I think it would be a good idea for Mike to have a simultaneous meeting with all the reporters (of whatever flavour) who are present, might be a bit rough on the tree cat but there can be no accusations of anyone being coerced in their reportage, which might be the case for individual one on one interviews.

George J. Smith wrote:O'Hanrahan was on the ground at the time of the Houdini cover up strikes, I would expect that at least some of those strikes would have been visible to her, so if she does come out and say that 10th fleet launched
missiles then Mike will know she is not to be trusted and really want to interview her along with a few other SL reporters. I think it would be a good idea for Mike to have a simultaneous meeting with all the reporters (of whatever flavour) who are present, might be a bit rough on the tree cat but there can be no accusations of anyone being coerced in their reportage, which might be the case for individual one on one interviews.

O'Hanrahan was ordered by the Alignment to stay in a certain location to avoid being in a blast zone.



Don

_

n7axw wrote:O'Hanrahan was ordered by the Alignment to stay in a certain location to avoid being in a blast zone.



Don

_

I really don't think Albrecht had any intention of leaving. He raised his sons to take over. He got the Alignment to this point. he fired off Oyster Bay. He triggered the destruction of the Solaran League. Like Janice Marinescu, there was no real place on Darius for him. Now he can go out the hero instead of the old man being slowly shuffled into a corner as his sons come into their own. And their anger can temper their resolve as Leonard's tempered his.

O'Hanrahan is not claiming to have seen missile traces -- we have her report on the situation at the end of the latest book, and while it delicately implicates the Manties it doesn't do so with crude lies; it does so with "Isn't it strange that all these explosions happened just after the Manties surrounded the planet and nobody has any other explanation for why it might happen that way? I really would like to believe it wasn't them, but nobody's got any plausible alternatives."

Also, even the lack of missile traces doesn't prove anything. A fleet in orbit doesn't need full-out missiles with millions of kilometer range -- they can use small craft in stealth mode, tactical munitions designed for stealth operations in atmosphere, or dozens of other things, to deliver warheads to targets that are NOT evading warships millions of kilometers away. Are you prepared to prove that the Royal Manticoran Marines are unable to do that sort of thing?

Remember, Mesa's line is not "we recorded missile traces" but "does this really look like a coincidence to you??"

tonyz wrote:O'Hanrahan is not claiming to have seen missile traces -- we have her report on the situation at the end of the latest book, and while it delicately implicates the Manties it doesn't do so with crude lies; it does so with "Isn't it strange that all these explosions happened just after the Manties surrounded the planet and nobody has any other explanation for why it might happen that way? I really would like to believe it wasn't them, but nobody's got any plausible alternatives."

Also, even the lack of missile traces doesn't prove anything. A fleet in orbit doesn't need full-out missiles with millions of kilometer range -- they can use small craft in stealth mode, tactical munitions designed for stealth operations in atmosphere, or dozens of other things, to deliver warheads to targets that are NOT evading warships millions of kilometers away. Are you prepared to prove that the Royal Manticoran Marines are unable to do that sort of thing?

Remember, Mesa's line is not "we recorded missile traces" but "does this really look like a coincidence to you??"

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, when you own the orbitals why would you use stealth to deliver nukes - it's not like they wont be noticed when they go off so it makes no sense at all.

Joat42 wrote:As I mentioned earlier in the thread, when you own the orbitals why would you use stealth to deliver nukes - it's not like they wont be noticed when they go off so it makes no sense at all.

Plausible deniability. You can lie and claim you didn't do it. It would only make "no sense" if there was no chance of anyone believing it wasn't you.

Now I would find it hard to believe a neutral observer would be fooled by such a simple trick, but you really only need to fool your own people. You probably only need to give them some plausible, since most probably won't want to say, "Our military butcher millions of innocents". So it makes total sense.

More fundamentally, if there is no chance of anyone believing it wasn't you, then there is no chance of anyone believing it wasn't you. In that case Manticore is screwed no matter what.

tonyz wrote:O'Hanrahan is not claiming to have seen missile traces -- we have her report on the situation at the end of the latest book, and while it delicately implicates the Manties it doesn't do so with crude lies; it does so with "Isn't it strange that all these explosions happened just after the Manties surrounded the planet and nobody has any other explanation for why it might happen that way? I really would like to believe it wasn't them, but nobody's got any plausible alternatives."

Also, even the lack of missile traces doesn't prove anything. A fleet in orbit doesn't need full-out missiles with millions of kilometer range -- they can use small craft in stealth mode, tactical munitions designed for stealth operations in atmosphere, or dozens of other things, to deliver warheads to targets that are NOT evading warships millions of kilometers away. Are you prepared to prove that the Royal Manticoran Marines are unable to do that sort of thing?

Remember, Mesa's line is not "we recorded missile traces" but "does this really look like a coincidence to you??"

No, she hasn't claimed to have seen missile traces. But her caution is what reinforces her credibility when she finally does bring the hammer down... which she will.

Don

-