Info found on Mesa

The last we read of Mesa it was being carpeted by nukes set up by Albrecht Detweiler. But we also know that a lot of the buildings of that time could survive nukes unless they were right on top of them.

Will every bit of data be gone? Will there be people alive who know more than what MAlign thinks they do?

Most people are inherently sloppy. Counter intel people are often assigned to check homes, etc., and often find things around that should not be.

But when you have a large number of people involved in research or engineering or transportation, you will always have gaps.

When the Grand Alliance sends people down, they might well find some interesting goodies. Could there be some information on spider drives or streak drives? Might some paranoid counterintel person have created an extra backup that the bosses don't know about? Could there be info on a Mesan ship captured in orbit?

Was everyone involved in the research either escorted out or eliminated?

Once the Mesans realize they've been betrayed by MAlign, and by that I mean Mesan citizens, how many will provide information?

Could be fun to discuss.

If what we saw with the Gamma Center was typical of Alignment planning, the various nuclear demolition charges were built into and under the facility mined. That is internal and under the place to be destoryed and the blast (along with vaporizing a certain amount of the place) is going to blow things to tiny pieces. It is also going to blow a lot of the surviving pieces (really really tiny pieces) up and outward.
Firebrand was showing his thoughts about the damage he saw from news recordings of the complex that had housed the Gamma Center. He only knew it had been in that location because he had been there. His conclusion was it was ever so much more and and effective than some sort of terrorist device smuggled in due to the shape of the crater and the effects observed from the blast. This was not an air-burst nor was it something at or above above ground in the complex, this was something that made a signicant hole as it went off apprently under the entire complex. Part of his reasoning was the damage pattern to the surrounding buildings. The explosion went up from below and out not just out from the target building.

If all of those places in the expunging of those Alignment locations at Albrect's signal had been pre-planned to be either ultimatly obliterated or they had self-destruct/demolition charges bulit in as security to keep any information and materials from falling into the wrong hands, they would have been done the same way.

The blast that was used to ultimatly cover Zack and the rest of the people who had been "at a major confidential conference" when they were extracted for Houdini was just a "little" device and placed in essentialy a storage or utility room. While it took down a lot of the building, it was supposed to looke like a terrorist device and while it was a devistating blast, it wasn't placed or designed to take the entire building from the sub-basements on up.

Somebody (probably a lot of people) in the Mesan military and engineers, along with Mike's people should be able to do analysis of how and were all of those Albrect devices were placed realtive to what was destroyed. At the very least they should be able to determine that they were fission or fusion devices rather than KEWs. That alone should at least eliminate 10th Fleet and the Haven Fleet as sources of the weapons. There will probably be nothing on the Air Traffic Control recordings anywhere on or above Mesa showing anything being launched down at the planet nor comming in through the atmosphere.

That won't stop the propaganda mills but it will help.

ldwechsler wrote:The last we read of Mesa it was being carpeted by nukes set up by Albrecht Detweiler. But we also know that a lot of the buildings of that time could survive nukes unless they were right on top of them.

Will every bit of data be gone? Will there be people alive who know more than what MAlign thinks they do?

Most people are inherently sloppy. Counter intel people are often assigned to check homes, etc., and often find things around that should not be.

But when you have a large number of people involved in research or engineering or transportation, you will always have gaps.

When the Grand Alliance sends people down, they might well find some interesting goodies. Could there be some information on spider drives or streak drives? Might some paranoid counterintel person have created an extra backup that the bosses don't know about? Could there be info on a Mesan ship captured in orbit?

Was everyone involved in the research either escorted out or eliminated?

Once the Mesans realize they've been betrayed by MAlign, and by that I mean Mesan citizens, how many will provide information?

Could be fun to discuss.

Simoes brought streak drive and maybe some on spider but I wonder if McBryde might have left something as he hacked the Alighment's systems?

Brigade XO wrote:The blast that was used to ultimatly cover Zack and the rest of the people who had been "at a major confidential conference" when they were extracted for Houdini was just a "little" device and placed in essentialy a storage or utility room. While it took down a lot of the building, it was supposed to looke like a terrorist device and while it was a devistating blast, it wasn't placed or designed to take the entire building from the sub-basements on up.

Somebody (probably a lot of people) in the Mesan military and engineers, along with Mike's people should be able to do analysis of how and were all of those Albrect devices were placed realtive to what was destroyed.

No, THOSE were weapons the Manticorans supplied to their terrorist lackeys in the ballroom. Just like Green Pines. The next wave was from space.

Brigade XO wrote: There will probably be nothing on the Air Traffic Control recordings anywhere on or above Mesa showing anything being launched down at the planet nor comming in through the atmosphere.

That won't stop the propaganda mills but it will help.

It will only help if the Manties and co. let unbiased investigators (or biased against the Manties) get copies of the Air Traffic Control recordings before the Manties get to them. If the Manties make sure to grab up all the communications first it will do nothing. Actually worse than nothing since it now looks like they have something to hide. Plus "patriot Mesans" will invariably manage to get some "unaltered" data that implicates Manticore anyway.

Also you seem to be forgetting something: Mesa was being run by bad people, who are perfectly willing to do bad things. Its possible they set things up so any attacking fleet would be autoframed for the nuclear blasts.

Which of course brings us to the worse possible outcome:

Admiral Gold Peak: As as you good journalists can see, we had nothing to do with the explosions just take a look at this data with us. We're seeing it for the first time, just like you.

*plays recording, recording shows air-to-ground missiles with almost enough stealth*

Preventing propaganda was a primary reason for imbedding journalists and reporters from a wide variety of news sources (i.e. those who love you and those who hate you) in military units. Thus when a marine contingent fought it's way into a location that might have sensitive data, such as recordings of what happened, the journalist was right there on the spot. They could record everything that happened and be a sort of proof and counter propaganda against some one saying the records had been altered.

Instead the reporter was seeing information at the same time as officer in site, without any chance of altering the records before the reporter saw them.

Theory doesn't always line up with reality, as many of us know from a lot of experience. Some people fight against embedded journalists because they claim these journalists won't be critical enough out of fear for having their access cut off. Or that they're spoon feeding the public what the military wants. But it's still an option to help keep public sentiment about your activities in check.

kzt wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The blast that was used to ultimatly cover Zack and the rest of the people who had been "at a major confidential conference" when they were extracted for Houdini was just a "little" device and placed in essentialy a storage or utility room. While it took down a lot of the building, it was supposed to looke like a terrorist device and while it was a devistating blast, it wasn't placed or designed to take the entire building from the sub-basements on up.

Somebody (probably a lot of people) in the Mesan military and engineers, along with Mike's people should be able to do analysis of how and were all of those Albrect devices were placed realtive to what was destroyed.

No, THOSE were weapons the Manticorans supplied to their terrorist lackeys in the ballroom. Just like Green Pines. The next wave was from space.

Wow! The language.

The Ballroom were never the lackeys of Manticore. "Respectable"
people wanted nothing to do with them even if they disliked slavery.

And Zilwicki and Cachat did not bring a bomb with them.

You would do well, however, as a propagandist for the slaveowners.

And in the long run we don't know enough about Mesa to know if things will be found. Also, what happens if some of the workers who were not all that central happened to be home from work or on vacation the day of the bombs.

Manticore has a track record of working with the Ballroom and Ballroom's co. conspirators. While that hasn't been made widely public yet, it could be. And while we can quibble about the word "supply" Anton DID remove the security from the Green Pines nuke.

Manticore basically have several awful options:

1) Deny everything. This is awful because if anyone DOES get proof Manticore was behind any of the nukes, they've destroyed any credibility they had on the issue.

2) Ignore all questions. This is awful because there are legitimate questions, so refusing to deny it makes you look kind of guilty.

3a) Go with the truth. This is awful because the truth is they've been conspiring with the Ballroom, helping homegrown Mesan terrorists, removed the security on the Green Pines nuke and nuked Mesa. Unfortunately, this is a confession to mass murder.

3b) Go with the truth and promptly throw Torch under the bus. Say Victor and Anton were working for Torch. Hell, the CIC of the Torch military is on Mesa! At first glance this clears Manticore of all blame.

The main problem here is that Victor and co. might respond by throwing Haven and Manticore under the bus. "Why yes, we were behind Green Pines. We had very specific orders from the Queen and President. We also helped pick the targets for the orbital bombardment. The important thing to remember is that Berry and Thandi had no knowledge of our horrible atrocities." This is particularly bad because people tend to believe confessions for some ghastly reason.

Back to the main topic: If I was the Malign I would leave a trail of evidence pointing back to all of my worst enemies.

Beowulf? A bunch of documents showing how Beowulf was helping you come up with new gene mods. The slaves would try them, and if they worked out Beowulf could "rescue" the slaves, and then use those fancy genes for their "eugenics" program, while claiming they weren't inventing new synthetic genes. This would be particularly damning if you DID tip Beowulf off to selected slave ships, so you could spread superior Mesan genes to the galaxy!

Political opponents of your infiltrators? They were working with Mesa and involved in horrible criminality. Bonus points if you had pretend slave Gamma Lines seduce them, so you can put them with a "slave" that they "purchased".

Manticore? Working with the Ballroom. There is extensively documented proof. Bonus points for having it all be true and at least some be verifiable.

What's that approaching black cloud and the horrible noise? Oh my god, it's the chickens coming home to roost!

ldwechsler wrote: Also, what happens if some of the workers who were not all that central happened to be home from work or on vacation the day of the bombs.

In Gallia omnis divisa in partes tres

They would be divided into three parts by (a) GAUL.