After Lacoon 2 what happens to Solarian merchant vessels

jtg452 wrote:Oh, the Lacoons are definitely acts of war.

Not legally. See http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/323/1 . For wormhole termini more than six light-hours from the primary, whoever has the most firepower owns the terminus. That's most of them. For the rest of them, most planetary governments are willing to negotiate when Manticore offers them a much larger slice of the pie than they're getting from the SLN.

JohnRoth wrote:

jtg452 wrote:Oh, the Lacoons are definitely acts of war.

Not legally. See http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/323/1 . For wormhole termini more than six light-hours from the primary, whoever has the most firepower owns the terminus. That's most of them. For the rest of them, most planetary governments are willing to negotiate when Manticore offers them a much larger slice of the pie than they're getting from the SLN.

There are two things in play here John. He may not have meant an act of war regarding seizing the junctions, in and of itself. But closing the junctions -- which would denote economical and humanitarian hardships -- foodstuffs, medicines, etc., hence acts of war.

Same thing Kim Jong-un is warning U.S. and U.S. allies participating in acts of embargo, resulting in hardships such as starving North Koreans. Which the U.S. responded with by allowing the shipments of certain items, which North Korea took advantage of. Then the U.S. took over the shipping of humanitarian items itself.

JohnRoth wrote:

Not legally. See http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/en ... gton/323/1 . For wormhole termini more than six light-hours from the primary, whoever has the most firepower owns the terminus. That's most of them. For the rest of them, most planetary governments are willing to negotiate when Manticore offers them a much larger slice of the pie than they're getting from the SLN.[/quote]
While they may not meet the legal description of acts of war, the resulting interruption they have on the economic and logistical needs of the Sollies are even worse than a shooting war commerce raiding campaign.

With one order, the majority of merchant hull in the league ceased to exist for all intents and purposes.

You have 10 truckloads of stuff that must be delivered in a timely manner. Yesterday, you had 11 trucks. Today, due to direct actions of your enemy, you have 3. If that's not an act of war in practice if not in law, I don't know what it is.

With another order, the wormhole network was closed to Solly use.

Those 3 trucks you still have left can't use their usual delivery routes any more due to road blocks set up by your enemy. Now, they have to take the long way and that increases the delivery time tremendously.

Again, if that's no an act of warfare in fact if not in name, I don't know what it is.

What I am seeing thus far from reading the novels is that a state of war exists between the Grand Alliance and the Solarian League, but, nothing has been formally declared?

olddatsunfan wrote:What I am seeing thus far from reading the novels is that a state of war exists between the Grand Alliance and the Solarian League, but, nothing has been formally declared?

Just as in the start of the first Havenite War when the SKM had to declare war after the Peep sneak attack, the Solarian League has to also declare war to allow the federal government its full powers to wage war. I don't believe it matters if war is declared upon the SL or not. What matters is that the SL declares a state of war exists.

I believe the SEM has declared war IF the SLN crosses either hyper limit of the Manticoran home system. This may or may not be sufficient to enable the war powers of the Solarian League federal government. I suspect it isn't.

That's my take on it.

PeterZ wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:What I am seeing thus far from reading the novels is that a state of war exists between the Grand Alliance and the Solarian League, but, nothing has been formally declared?

Just as in the start of the first Havenite War when the SKM had to declare war after the Peep sneak attack, the Solarian League has to also declare war to allow the federal government its full powers to wage war. I don't believe it matters if war is declared upon the SL or not. What matters is that the SL declares a state of war exists.

I believe the SEM has declared war IF the SLN crosses either hyper limit of the Manticoran home system. This may or may not be sufficient to enable the war powers of the Solarian League federal government. I suspect it isn't.

That's my take on it.

And the SL actions.

Indeed. And the SEM has already displayed its willingness to do what it takes anyways, short of tearing the fragile rice paper that bears the Harrington Doctrine.

Besides, once the League begins its commerce raiding -- and certainly if they are an accomplice to whatever horrendous fate befalls Beowulf -- it becomes a moot point anyways. Or rather, more of a moot point.

cthia wrote:Although I think the RMN should seize shipments and will -- the message should be clear and hammered home to the Sollies that this thing is for real -- the RMN doesn't have to actually seize shipments, rather than check manifests. You do NOT want to allow the enemy freedom of movement of resources along enemy supply lines during a war. Or miss opportunities to seize war stuffs -- like, oh, Cataphracts?

That works only as long as the ships don't know about the seized and closed wormholes. As soon as they do, they simply move from origin to destination without conveniently showing up at the control points. It is repeatedly mentioned in the books that ships are extremely difficult to impossible to intercept en route if they feel a bit sneaky.

aairfccha wrote:

cthia wrote:Although I think the RMN should seize shipments and will -- the message should be clear and hammered home to the Sollies that this thing is for real -- the RMN doesn't have to actually seize shipments, rather than check manifests. You do NOT want to allow the enemy freedom of movement of resources along enemy supply lines during a war. Or miss opportunities to seize war stuffs -- like, oh, Cataphracts?

That works only as long as the ships don't know about the seized and closed wormholes. As soon as they do, they simply move from origin to destination without conveniently showing up at the control points. It is repeatedly mentioned in the books that ships are extremely difficult to impossible to intercept en route if they feel a bit sneaky.

True. Though I imagine the RMN will sooner, rather than later, make it open season for Solarian shipping. Hence, their own raids.

At any rate, for the flies that are nice enough to fly right into the hornet's nest, the hornets can't be rude and ignore the windfall.

PeterZ wrote:

olddatsunfan wrote:What I am seeing thus far from reading the novels is that a state of war exists between the Grand Alliance and the Solarian League, but, nothing has been formally declared?

Just as in the start of the first Havenite War when the SKM had to declare war after the Peep sneak attack, the Solarian League has to also declare war to allow the federal government its full powers to wage war. I don't believe it matters if war is declared upon the SL or not. What matters is that the SL declares a state of war exists.

I believe the SEM has declared war IF the SLN crosses either hyper limit of the Manticoran home system. This may or may not be sufficient to enable the war powers of the Solarian League federal government. I suspect it isn't.

That's my take on it.

There are Acts of War, States of War (de facto or not) and Declarations of War. I'm not a lawyer so what follows is just my person opinion.

Lacoön One may or may not be an economic act of war, it was after all basically a matter of how Manticoran assets were used (Manticoran ships, Manticoran wormholes). Lacoön Two, on the other hand, is definitely an economic act of war. But even Lacoön One was only initiated after numerous acts of war by the League. Starting with the OFS and Gendarmerie involvement in the Talbott Cluster that culminated in the Battle of Monica. Though I will admit that the Mandarins probably didn't have any knowledge about that. Just as they didn't know about Byng and Crandall until after the fact. The actions of both Byng and Crandall, however, definitely were acts of war and the fact that neither they nor their actions were immediately repudiated once they were brought to League's attention simply implies that the League doesn't have a problem with their naval officers committing acts of war. Instead of asking Parliament for a Declaration of War, Elizabeth ordered Case Lacoön activated.

In ART , when Honor confronted Filareta and his Eleventh Fleet, IIRC, she said something like, "If you and your ships cross the hyper limit a state of war will exist between our nations." So at that point, despite all of the acts of war, of various kinds, committed by both sides, no Declaration of War had been passed by the Manticoran Parliament. I believe, however, that changed immediately after the Second Battle of Manticore.

The Solarian League on the other hand, to officially declare war has to get that Declaration of War through their Assembly without any vetos. And even assuming that Beowulf couldn't vote, I wouldn't be surprised if the League government can't get that unanimous vote, even now. IMHO, some of those delegates would hold out their approval, a few out of principle and probably more for some theoretical political gain.

I don't know if Haven or Greyson have passed Declarations of War yet. I know they both have naval vessels and personnel who have engaged in combat with the SLN, but as we've seen in the last few books that doesn't automatically mean a Declaration of War.

As a RL example, during WWII before Pearl Harbor and our Declaration of War on Germany, some US navy ships fired on (and were fired on) by German ships. The US ships were helping to escort convoys and the German ships were U-boats attacking those convoys.

So, I know the Solarian League Constitution is poorly written, but I doubt its poorly enough written to paralyze their military in the event someone declare war on them. I think its safe to assume they have their war power. As a WAG, the war powers don't bother officially defining war. Which gives just enough room for a lawyer to claim it requires a declaration. But again, just a WAG.

Of course, they could kick out anyone who tries to use their veto even if the constitution is that badly written, but that sort of defeats the point now doesn't it? In fact, if they tried that I think they might suddenly get more vetoes, so they can opt out of the war.

On the main topic: I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that Laocoon II wasn't an act of war. Its commerce raiding and seizing other nations' assets. Its an act of war against the Solarian League and everyone who had a wormhole stolen. The only way you could argue it isn't an act of war would be to argue it was an act of piracy.