Remaining holes in SLN intel

tlb wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:The problem is that Manticore did NOT, I repeat did NOT, set off the bombs on Mesa.

The first was built by Mesans as a defensive measure and set off by a Mesan security man. Of that, there is no doubt.

The second was set off by a deranged Mesan seccie.

Although Manticorans were around, neither one had anything to do with the bombs.

Yes, the first was done to help their escape but they didn't build it or set it off. They might not even have known it existed.

And the second one was a bomb they knew nothing about.

Yes, they could and were accused by Mesa. And it went nowhere. There was remarkably little sympathy for the Mesans anywhere in the galaxy.

So why are we still arguing?

Anton Zilwicki had a hand on both nukes that the seccies had brought to him; the only one he did not know about was the third one that destroyed the Gamma Center. He personally disabled the location mechanism on his two: one to blow up an empty building to destroy traces of his escape and the other was given to the seccie, intended for another safe target - instead it was used at Green Pines. So it means that you might want to reread Torch of Freedom.

From Torch of Freedom;

Why they disabled the locator on the nuke:

Victor: First, they can send out the elite commando unit to retrieve it, with lots of very big, very nasty, and very efficient guns. Plenty to ... give all the walls down here a nice even coating of ... Blood, guts and brains. ... Or second,
they can detonate the device.

About their control over the nukes and the Seccy resistance fighters:

There really wasn't anything they could do about it.
It wasn't as if he and Victor had any real control of the group.

And after an internal debate in which Zilwicki has tried to get them to use fuel-air bombs instead:

Of course, that was exactly the reason Hansen and his group - certainly David Pritchard - were so determined to use nuclear explosives. Not only were they in the grip of a ferocious anger going back centuries, but the knowledge which Anton and Victor had given them that Mesa planned to destroy Torch had given that fury a tremendous boost. Stripped to its raw and bleeding essentials, the attitude of Hansen's people could be summed up as: So the scorpions want to play rough,
do they? No problem. Rough it is.

[Italics author's]

And .... to Carl Hansen

Send instructions to Karen and David. Tell them to get the hell out and go to ground.

Why are we still debating about this?

Bluesqueak wrote:Why are we still debating about this?

I am not sure; I agree with your presentation of the facts (some who argued did not have the facts straight; even I did not remember that Anton was aware that the Gamma Center was to be destroyed). So the question that might remain between us is whether Mesan propagandists can use Anton's involvement in preparing the bomb that was used in Green Pines to tar Torch and Manticore in a way that opens the suggestion of involvement in all the other explosions?
Obviously Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachet had no foreknowledge of the Green Pines explosion and would not have wanted it to happen. Also obvious that propagandists could have lied about the involvement in any case. But in a strict legal sense both of them are accessories before the fact - in the same way that the getaway driver for a bank robbery is accessory to murder if a teller is accidentally killed.

Bluesqueak wrote:Manticore didn't have a role in the Green Pines massacre. Neither did Haven.

The Serbian government had NOTHING to do with the death of that Archduke and his wife.

Bluesqueak wrote:Torch had already declared war on Mesa, if I'm remembering the timeline correctly. Which makes Zilwicki an agent in enemy territory , working with the resistance - and who tried to stop the bombing.

OK, so it’s a Torch Edict violation, not a terrorist attack?

Bluesqueak wrote:Manticore didn't have a role in the Green Pines massacre. Neither did Haven.

kzt wrote:The Serbian government had NOTHING to do with the death of that Archduke and his wife.

I hope you mean this jokingly; since the tie to Manticore is only through Anton Zilwicki (at worst a half pay Naval officer. The tie to Haven through Cachet is stronger, but was not pursued in the official line), while the head of the "Black Hand" was a member of the Serbian government - the difference between the official government position and the Black Hand policies were whether Greater Serbian would be achieved through a future war or by present terror, subversion and insurrection.

Bluesqueak wrote:Torch had already declared war on Mesa, if I'm remembering the timeline correctly. Which makes Zilwicki an agent in enemy territory , working with the resistance - and who tried to stop the bombing.

kzt wrote:OK, so it’s a Torch Edict violation, not a terrorist attack?

What Edict - the one that prohibits planetary bombardment from space? The official Mesan explanation (if I remember correctly) was that this was an Audubon Ballroom terror action as retribution for the naval attack on Torch, which received the help of seccies and the notorious Manticorean spy named Anton Zilwicki. They did not dispute that Torch was at war; instead portrayed this as an assault on women and children, rather than any military target. It was never claimed to be a bombardment from space, unlike the probable claims after the Manticore Navy arrived at Mesa.

Pat Givens wrote:Nobody keeps anything this broad, this ambitious, hidden for as long as Simoes and McBryde's information suggests these people have been around. Without being very very good.

My brain keeps bugging me as if I know, when ONI will realize that such an operation like this has all kinds of support all over the galaxy, especially on Old Earth, since they are the real target. Which, my brain specifically keeps hassling me, might lead to Audrey O'Hanrahan. If they investigate her, my brain and I are quite sure they'll find some bread crumbs. None too kosher bread crumbs.

If they had Manticoran reporters on Earth so as to keep abreast of the news outlets, they would have a more intimate relationship with Audrey O'Hanrahan if only because they'd detest the beotch. Her reporting hasn't been neutral enough to a skilled investigator's eyes.

tlb wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:Why are we still debating about this?

I am not sure; I agree with your presentation of the facts (some who argued did not have the facts straight; even I did not remember that Anton was aware that the Gamma Center was to be destroyed). So the question that might remain between us is whether Mesan propagandists can use Anton's involvement in preparing the bomb that was used in Green Pines to tar Torch and Manticore in a way that opens the suggestion of involvement in all the other explosions?
Obviously Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachet had no foreknowledge of the Green Pines explosion and would not have wanted it to happen. Also obvious that propagandists could have lied about the involvement in any case. But in a strict legal sense both of them are accessories before the fact - in the same way that the getaway driver for a bank robbery is accessory to murder if a teller is accidentally killed.

I'm actually not sure they can: the reaction to everyone who knew Zilwicki was 'this is ridiculous'. Then there's the surviving members of the resistance group, who could testify that it was their idea, not the Manticoran's.

The Solarians might accept it; mainly because the textev is that they'll accept anything. They'd accept propaganda accounts of Manticorans raping fluffy bunnies and eating babies.

But the Verge? They're more likely to go "Mesa: that's the planet who tried to start rebellions by sending provocateurs to lie to people, telling them that they'd have Manty support. Manticore - that's the star nation that discovered these people had been lied to - and then turned up with the needed support even though they could have said 'nothing to do with us'. Hmmm, who shall I believe?"

As to the strict legal sense - are you a lawyer? If so, fine - I'll accept your interpretation. But I'm personally very doubtful that a civil court in the UK would convict someone as 'accessory before the fact' when there are living witnesses who can say that the person who did commit the offence was told to not do it - to stand down.

I'm also somewhat doubtful that this IS a civil case. Mesa was at war at the time of Green Pines. Of course, they hadn't conformed to the pettifogging legalism of actually declaring war, but they were at undeclared war with all three of the Star Nations that could be claimed to be involved.

So who exactly has the right to even try Zilwicki and Cachat? The Star Nation that they were at war with would have had the right to try them as enemy agents if they'd been caught in the act, but they should have been tried as military saboteurs, 'enemy agents found behind the lines in civilian clothing'.

But we're now in a situation where the war is in the open, Zilwicki and Cachat escaped with information that turned out to be vital to Torch, Haven and Manticore - and it's pretty 'unusual', to say the least, for Torch to even consider prosecuting their own agents for acts carried out in the process of escaping with vital military information.

So I'm not entirely sure that what we're arguing about - especially the 'accessory before the fact' idea - is the right thing to be arguing about.

I find it ironic that while all of this is going on SS orphans with Alignment sponsorship were on their way to turn Torch into an uninhabitable waste, deliberately creating a Eridani edict violation...wonder how many kids would have died then...

As for The Alignment hitting military targets in OB, yes, I suppose so if you want to legitimize sneak attacks on targets against people who don't even know you are their opponent. Do you really think that the Alignment cared about collateral damage to civilian targets...as long as they steered clear of a direct Eridani violation?

And oh yes, we are fussing about the 3 nukes that Anton and Victor were marginly involved in, one of which happened because David went off his rocker and bombed a kiddy park at Green Pines. But how many explosions went off while Houdini was being executed including that final flourish when Albrecht hit the button with Tourville and Henke in orbit? And, I almost forgot, how many kids died then?

Consider the whole picture, everybody. Focusing down on Anton and Victor without considering the rest of it it sort of like considering gnats while we are being swallowed by camels.

If we want to have a moral discussion about the situation surrounding Anton and Victor, the real questions has to do with their choices and whether or not given what they knew, they could have achieved a different result with different choices.

Dunno about that one... it was a very high risk situation. About the only way that could have been avoided would be to stay off Mesa altogether.

Don

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cthia wrote:

Pat Givens wrote:Nobody keeps anything this broad, this ambitious, hidden for as long as Simoes and McBryde's information suggests these people have been around. Without being very very good.

My brain keeps bugging me as if I know, when ONI will realize that such an operation like this has all kinds of support all over the galaxy, especially on Old Earth, since they are the real target. Which, my brain specifically keeps hassling me, might lead to Audrey O'Hanrahan. If they investigate her, my brain and I are quite sure they'll find some bread crumbs. None too kosher bread crumbs.

If they had Manticoran reporters on Earth so as to keep abreast of the news outlets, they would have a more intimate relationship with Audrey O'Hanrahan if only because they'd detest the beotch. Her reporting hasn't been neutral enough to a skilled investigator's eyes.

Except O'Hanrahan has been as neutral as she's always been. After Henke's little accident O'Hanrahan will probably be one of the very few Solarian reporters who isn't reporting "Manticore committed the worst E3 violation ever in Mesa."

Now to be fair, a skilled investigator might be able to deduce O'Hanrahan's real motive. Her real motive is building credibility to take down Manticore! If she's the only real voice saying "Maybe Manticore didn't do it.", when she finally flips and says "Manticore is a baddie." that will be the end of Manticore's reputation. Furthermore, O'Hanrahan only needs to report facts because the facts are absurdly damning.

Honestly the worst potential outcome is the Opposition learns about Honor talking with Victor and makes it out to be a conspiracy, and achieves political power. Honor and the people in her political circle were working with Haven the entire time. The second war? Nothing more than a scam to get back in power. And really what's more likely? A huge centuries long conspiracy of genetic supermen with magical stealth drives and mind control powers? Or a short conspiracy that spins out of control? In fact, the proof was staring them in the face all along. The "forged" correspondences. One man somehow stumbled upon the Queen's personal encryption key? Then he dies in a single aircar accident. "Single Aircar accident" might as well be "Murdered by the government."

Bluesqueak wrote:
As to the strict legal sense - are you a lawyer? If so, fine - I'll accept your interpretation. But I'm personally very doubtful that a civil court in the UK would convict someone as 'accessory before the fact' when there are living witnesses who can say that the person who did commit the offence was told to not do it - to stand down.

I'm also somewhat doubtful that this IS a civil case. Mesa was at war at the time of Green Pines. Of course, they hadn't conformed to the pettifogging legalism of actually declaring war, but they were at undeclared war with all three of the Star Nations that could be claimed to be involved.

So who exactly has the right to even try Zilwicki and Cachat? The Star Nation that they were at war with would have had the right to try them as enemy agents if they'd been caught in the act, but they should have been tried as military saboteurs, 'enemy agents found behind the lines in civilian clothing'.

But we're now in a situation where the war is in the open, Zilwicki and Cachat escaped with information that turned out to be vital to Torch, Haven and Manticore - and it's pretty 'unusual', to say the least, for Torch to even consider prosecuting their own agents for acts carried out in the process of escaping with vital military information.

So I'm not entirely sure that what we're arguing about - especially the 'accessory before the fact' idea - is the right thing to be arguing about.

No, I am not a lawyer so anything I say can be taken with several grains of salt. But accessory before the fact is a criminal matter, not a civil one. This is what Wikipedia says:

The term "accessory" derives from the English common law, and been inherited by those countries with a more or less Anglo-American legal system. The concept of complicity is, of course, common across different legal traditions. The specific terms accessory-before-the-fact and accessory-after-the-fact were used in England and the United States but are now more common in historical than in current usage.

I do not believe anyone is going to court. I do not believe any of the seccies are still alive (note that the ringleader knew people got away and who they were; facts not known by the Detweilers when concocting the coverup). I have only pushed the idea that the presence of Zilwicki (known from the video) gives the Mesan propaganda a air of truthfulness that will cause Manticore diplomatic problems. First that Torch is more a haven for terrorists than a true nation and Manticore supports them and second that Manticore has now joined the terror campaign when it captured Mesa. We know this is not true, but the leaders of the core worlds that Manticore needs to win over will not.