BEOWULF - THE KARMA SUITSYA

Beowulf has long been a critic of the League from within. Its delegation has witnessed against League policies for years from the forum of the Assembly.

If there is any moral argument that can cogently be leveled against Beowulf, it's that because they didn't leave sooner and thus were as a League member complicite with the OFS policies in the Verge. But even that is weak because Beowulf could not as a League member impact those policies.

No, I don't think Beowulf can be critcized for finally drawing the line against the League's criminality by withdrawing. There is no moral obligation for Beowulf to participate in the mugging of an innocent friendly neighbor. In fact the moral argument really goes the other way. Since they did know about Raging Justice in advance, they were honor bound to inform Manticore in exactly the same sense and for the same reason that I would be obligated to inform my neighbor that someone was trying to break into his house along with doing everything possible to stop it.

There is never an acceptable reason to either participate in evil or to stand aside while it is happening. To be sure, there are times when we are forced to choose between two wrongs and must decide which wrong would cause the greater harm. But we should never compromise our conscience by pretending that the one wrong has become right.

But that is really not applicable here. The Mandarins had every opportunity to apologize for Byng's destruction of those three Rolands in New Tuscany and make restitution to the families of the victims. They also had more than ample opportunity to apologize for and disavow Sandra Crandal's actions. Morally the League doesn't have a leg to stand on and its actions toward Beowulf can only be described as reprehensible.

Don

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Beowulf was probably the most important system in the creation of the Solarian League. So Beowulf leaving has much more of a sting to it than just one fairly wealthy system walking out the door

joat42 wrote:Explain in detail how Beowulf was complicit, because so far you haven't managed to produce one coherent argument why they where complicit.

Because you are still making this personal about cthia. Old habits die hard.

You don't want to see all of the truth. You like Beowulf and you abhor what the League has become because of the Mandarins. I do too. Yet there are two sides to every coin and I'm looking at them both.

Again, Beowulf took the moral high ground. They were sick of being in bed with the League. I don't blame them there. But they had an obligation to do it properly. Beowulf did not, they made a few mistakes along the way. Crucial mistakes, IMO.

As I've stated before and it continues, many of you are discounting the implied and unspoken responsibility Beowulf has to the League. Now that I've been reminded that Beowulf was a founder, that point is magnified. Remember, the League wasn't always corrupt, they stood for something good. They adopted an Edict to punish those who would use advanced technology to cause unthinkable deaths to unwitting planets. The League was once the eyes, ears and conscience of the galaxy. Beowulf was more than happy to be a part of that and so they helped found an entity. Willingly! Beowulf was respectful to that entity when they were all just young adults growing up and finding their way, long before the League became corrupt. There is no way that Beowulf would have practiced any actions that could have been misconstrued as traitorous to the League it help create, in the formative years of its founding.

Really, adopting the stance that it is impossible for Beowulf to commit treason against the League because of the reality of their relationship is absurd. Also, I do not cotton to the notion that the relationship between the two is anything like NATO or any of the other comparisons. NATO does not contain the intimacy of its partners that the League had with Beowulf, but even within NATO there exists the concept of traitor. Old Earth and Beowulf are no strangers to each other. They all hail from the same neighborhood, inasmuch as they've been playing on the same block for centuries. The League considers Beowulf as one of them, not just part of them. The Mandarins would never, have never, will never, consider BEOWULF as neobarbs.

Therein is where Beowulf screwed the pooch. "We're sick of the League. Let's get out."

"Fine, but let's do it properly. After all, we owe an unspoken allegiance to the billions of innocent citizens of the entity we help found in order to protect those same citizens AND US from unthinkable atrocities meted out onto unsuspecting, innocent citizens up to and including an Eridani Edict violation from unscrupulous amoral cowards from space."

So Beowulf decided to finally take the moral high ground and divorce the League like they've been meaning to do for quite some time because the Mandarins, who were elected, had become corrupt criminals. Yet, the billions of citizens under their responsibility had not become corrupt. They were all innocent pawns. Beowulf had a responsibility to those billions of lives that they help found a barrier of protection to help keep safe and sound, as well.

When Beowulf decided to hand the playbook of the League over to the Manties, I question that from the POV of the Mandarins AS WELL AS THE LIVES OF THE INNOCENT CITIZENS OF THE LEAGUE. If you are going to get in the middle of a dispute, it is wrong to grab and hold one combatant (and or even assist them by giving them pointers and words of encouragement) while the other pummels them.

cthia's stance:
When Beowulf told the Manties that the juggernaut was coming, whether you all will admit it or not, it was to help prevent Manticoran deaths. Manticore had just been attacked by the Alignment, which gutted their naval support structure and they hadn't completely recovered from the Battle of Manticore. A formal fleet had not been dispatched from the League and no one really knew if there would be any new surprises. There was fear, REAL FEAR of Beowulf's that the Manties would be harmed. After all, this was the 800# juggernaut that the entire galaxy had been so afraid of for centuries, who were rolling in thunder towards the Manties, representing the entity that they helped found.

But where was the same moral consideration and obligation for the lives of the innocent victims that would undoubtedly be snuffed out in the SLN? A navy that Beowulf knew was headed towards Manticore. A navy that contained innocent lives that they had once pledged to protect by the sheer definition of the design they helped found. Beowulf had plenty of time to do the right thing and tell the Mandarins that they had informed the Manties that they were coming and a formal welcoming party had been assembled to receive them! Beowulf didn't do that. They left that up to the neobarbs that they had befriended. Beowulf should have known, and they did, that the Mandarins would not listen to anything from neobarbs. But the Mandarins don't consider Beowulf as neobarbs, which is why that revelation should have come from them -- if saving lives is truly behind Bewoulf's actions -- but it didn't. Beowulf helped set the SLN up, along with all of those innocent lives who were simply following orders. By definition, implied or otherwise, the lives that Beowulf was supposed to protect were the lives of the innocent citizens of the League, of which they helped found! Beowulf knew that any attempts of the RMN or Manticore to head off the juggernaut would simply be dismissed by the gorilla as posturing, bluffing or fear. It is all that is available at the hands of backwoods neobarbs who are frightened of dying. BEOWULF should have informed the Mandarins that a trap had been set. They informed the Manties of the juggernauts plans. Beowulf should have either conscientiously objected to go along the plan and completely stayed out of it, or do the right thing and inform on both parties -- even if they were not going to be concerned with the innocent lives of the entity of which they helped form.

Deciding to go all in in preventing the SLN from using the junction wasn't simply out of some altruistic concern of Beowulf's of SLN lives. It was FEAR! Sure, the SLN may have had no chance in 1001 tries to defeat the RMN on that day either, perhaps, maybe, even with that Demon Murphy's help. But they did have a very real chance of killing many Manticorans out of surprise and unpreparedness. Manticorans who could have been their spouses, sons and daughters. Among which could have been the Salamander herself who died.

But where was the same passionate concern for the innocent lives that should also have existed for their own founding?

Again, I can't understand why many of you are so quick to easily accept the bastardization of John Harrington's quote and your willingness to support the many who are in power to take advantage of that quote. Yet, why should the same strategy not be open to the League, with all of this rampant talk about legal issues in the face of a dying superpower!

Emergency, on-the-spot, war powers is what the Mandarins enacted. They ignored proper protocol, yes. But they did so in light of "the spirit of the law" AND THEIR SURVIVAL!

The "spirit of the law" supports their actions considering the untenable position they were in. They were desperate. Just like the Havenites were when they attempted the same thing. They went for a Hail Mary pass and it was intercepted. Their trick play even ended up in a safety for the other team. Both plays were not only thwarted, but were turned into offense for the enemy - the worst possible outcome for a play, because someone gave the other team the playbook. And they got clobbered!

The Mandarins went for a sucker punch, out of desperation to save itself and the League. As any entity would do. As any navy would do, that it even has the raw innate human will and right to do, survive! Again, it was nothing less than what Haven tried with the first BOM. Hit them while they are unaware, unsuspecting and one big happy family, utilizing the element of surprise. It is self-preservation. They didn't have time to bother with "niggling little details" like going through the League Assembly. That would have taken too much time and time was not a luxury the SLN had. In fact, it could have been argued that if the Mandarins failed to act decisively, facing the inevitable death to the League and the threat to Old Earth, would have been treasonous...

Given what they thought was obvious, that the Manty Home defenses were gutted. And that the writing on the wall says that if they do not score, and score big, during the two minute warning, they are doomed.

What is wrong about a decision to make a quick thrust down the heart of an enemy and to a system that is on your long range plans to absorb anyway, when you see a weakness in the system's heart? To wait and let that moment pass would have been highly irresponsible of the League. The League was expansionistic, they didn't just become so overnight.

"But they just don't want Beowulf to secede!"

Of course they don't! You can't fault them there. Beowulf's junction represents a direct axis of threat into the League. Beowulf's secession would threaten the League at its core, from within, like a disease. Many of you continue to allow your prejudices to color your logic. It is difficult to remain emotionally detached, fair and impartial, when you are a reader.


****** *

After being alerted, Beowulf proceeded to pull at the stitch that was the snitch, thus exacerbating the glitch even further. They did not elect to sew the stitch up. They elected to pull at the system glitch that provided a snitch, instead of stitching the stitch that is a snitch, thus resisting the itch to unravel the plan even further.

Beowulf was bad. Really really bad. It doesn't matter if you and I don't think they were bad. We don't weigh 800#.

In this line of discussion, divorce is a straw-man argument (well, make that TarBaby). It doesn't apply but is an interesing take on the subject.

As for FF and its actions, on behalf of the League and the rescue/protection of all sorts of planets that have needed that help, note that not only does their help ALWAY come with draconian level costs but what we are being shown in the present 20 odd years and recounted as history in backstory is that be in from a natural disaster or to prop up a local regime, FF and OFS always seems to hold back and has to be "asked in" to save something and essentialy never leaves. Nobody, outside the League, has a good opinion of OFS based on their history. At one point they may have actualy done what it sounds like they are supposed to do- secure the frontiers and possibly assist sytems out beyond the borders- but that seems to have been tossed away centuries ago. Fig leaf of being asked to come help in a plague or local dictator can't keep the population down any longer, that kind of stuff.
There is also a massive play book about doing this . Hello FF data cores surrender with Byng's flee with Opperation Buccaneer etc written out in formalized and well polished practice of how to take over a juicy rich system (or one that has just become interesting as a source of income) and make it legal- well follow the letter of the League rules and regulations and you have to get documents reembursing OFS for helping or no help. Recall it's not an EE if the current "legitimate" government requests your assistance even if it's hitting 15-20 cities and towns with KEWs and dropping a battalion of Interdiction Troops down to slaughter people while the locals can concentrate on butchering the troublemakers.

I beleive a country can leave the UN, but nobodys seems to do it. Mostly it is because they either want to keep the flow of power and influence and money comming or are working the system for their own ideals. That would be professed or actual ideals of the various contries and those countrie's leadership. Keep in mind that at this point the UN also had financial and politicala clout plus those Peace Keeping troops and if you leave- say for humanitarian reasons or are sick of the kleptocracy and power blocks supporting regimes that disgust you- you might just find yourself on the receiving end of all sorts or stuff you don't want like sanctions you can't block or regulations which play havoc with your economy or perhaps "help" from an outside military force or "observers".

But I digress and won't even get into Brexit and leaving a trade union peacefully without economic and other reprisals when the unelected (by the populations of the sepearte members) buracracy start dictating changes in internal economic and political and other area which were supposed to be internal to the indivial Sovereign States involved. Thats and opinion and dam this gets sticky.

Or Beowulf just wants to get clear of the organized crime operation the League Buracracy has become and nothing is more dangerous than not going with the program that makes a lot of people rich and powerful when they feel that the only way they can protect themselves is figuratively break your kneecaps or put a bullet in the back of your head, in a manner of speaking. You should be more respectfull and follow the rules (and conventions), it would be too bad if something happened to your little planet.

cthia wrote:Again, I can't understand why many of you are so quick to easily accept the bastardization of John Harrington's quote and your willingness to support the many who are in power to take advantage of that quote. Yet, why should the same strategy not be open to the League, with all of this rampant talk about legal issues in the face of a dying superpower!

Wikiquote and Wikipedia spell his name with one "R". The actions of the League have nothing to do with the quote; although the quote, in one of its forms, might have something to say about the result. The Mandarins do not care about legal issues, only about how they can benefit; as a result they will reap the whirlwind.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:Again, I can't understand why many of you are so quick to easily accept the bastardization of John Harrington's quote and your willingness to support the many who are in power to take advantage of that quote. Yet, why should the same strategy not be open to the League, with all of this rampant talk about legal issues in the face of a dying superpower!

Wikiquote and Wikipedia spell his name with one "R". The actions of the League have nothing to do with the quote; although the quote, in one of its forms, might have something to say about the result. The Mandarins do not care about legal issues, only about how they can benefit; as a result they will reap the whirlwind.

That was my point. Same as any other power who has a big hammer.

cthia wrote:Again, I can't understand why many of you are so quick to easily accept the bastardization of John Harrington's quote and your willingness to support the many who are in power to take advantage of that quote. Yet, why should the same strategy not be open to the League, with all of this rampant talk about legal issues in the face of a dying superpower!

Emergency, on-the-spot, war powers is what the Mandarins enacted. They ignored proper protocol, yes. But they did so in light of "the spirit of the law" AND THEIR SURVIVAL!

The "spirit of the law" supports their actions considering the untenable position they were in. They were desperate. Just like the Havenites were when they attempted the same thing. They went for a Hail Mary pass and it was intercepted. Their trick play even ended up in a safety for the other team. Both plays were not only thwarted, but were turned into offense for the enemy - the worst possible outcome for a play, because someone gave the other team the playbook. And they got clobbered!

The Mandarins went for a sucker punch, out of desperation to save itself and the League. As any entity would do. As any navy would do, that it even has the raw innate human will and right to do, survive! Again, it was nothing less than what Haven tried with the first BOM. Hit them while they are unaware, unsuspecting and one big happy family, utilizing the element of surprise. It is self-preservation. They didn't have time to bother with "niggling little details" like going through the League Assembly. That would have taken too much time and time was not a luxury the SLN had. In fact, it could have been argued that if the Mandarins failed to act decisively, facing the inevitable death to the League and the threat to Old Earth, would have been treasonous...

Given what they thought was obvious, that the Manty Home defenses were gutted. And that the writing on the wall says that if they do not score, and score big, during the two minute warning, they are doomed.

What is wrong about a decision to make a quick thrust down the heart of an enemy and to a system that is on your long range plans to absorb anyway, when you see a weakness in the system's heart? To wait and let that moment pass would have been highly irresponsible of the League. The League was expansionistic, they didn't just become so overnight.

"But they just don't want Beowulf to secede!"

Of course they don't! You can't fault them there. Beowulf's junction represents a direct axis of threat into the League. Beowulf's secession would threaten the League at its core, from within, like a disease. Many of you continue to allow your prejudices to color your logic. It is difficult to remain emotionally detached, fair and impartial, when you are a reader.


****** *

After being alerted, Beowulf proceeded to pull at the stitch that was the snitch, thus exacerbating the glitch even further. They did not elect to sew the stitch up. They elected to pull at the system glitch that provided a snitch, instead of stitching the stitch that is a snitch, thus resisting the itch to unravel the plan even further.

Beowulf was bad. Really really bad. It doesn't matter if you and I don't think they were bad. We don't weigh 800#.

Apparently they tried many times in the Star Chamber to get the league back to what it was supposed to be, but the bought & sold members of the chamber put the kibosh on their attempts.

n7axw wrote:Beowulf has long been a critic of the League from within. Its delegation has witnessed against League policies for years from the forum of the Assembly.

If there is any moral argument that can cogently be leveled against Beowulf, it's that because they didn't leave sooner and thus were as a League member complicite with the OFS policies in the Verge. But even that is weak because Beowulf could not as a League member impact those policies.

I really like this post, Don. I do have a few points though. Beowulf could have affected what the League thought they could continue to get away with by seceding much sooner. The fact that they went along with it for so long either shows that they were not emotionally and passionately invested as they claim to be now, or that they knew or feared that they didn't have the balls to do it before meeting their new suitor. A fact that the new suitor's military gives Beowulf big brass balls is a fact the Mandarins and their navy realizes as well. Which appears that the Manties are instigators.

Beowulf also failed the moral litmus test by seeking to protect Manticore by informing them that the gorilla was coming. But failing to also protect the innocent lives of the SLN that "It's a booby trap that we help set up!"

n7axw wrote:No, I don't think Beowulf can be critcized for finally drawing the line against the League's criminality by withdrawing. There is no moral obligation for Beowulf to participate in the mugging of an innocent friendly neighbor. In fact the moral argument really goes the other way. Since they did know about Raging Justice in advance, they were honor bound to inform Manticore in exactly the same sense and for the same reason that I would be obligated to inform my neighbor that someone was trying to break into his house along with doing everything possible to stop it.

Indeed. I like that slant. But you also yell at the criminal element that you've called the cops. And you don't plan with your neighbor to corner the criminals and hurt them. They were also honor bound to the League. Not to the Mandarins (although, perhaps they were since they run the League) but also to the League's citizens. They did not inform their own founding that there was danger. Perhaps it was ok to not give a shit about the Mandarins, but the billions of citizens represented by the League and the millions of innocent officers in the SLN should have been a concern of Beowulf's.

n7axw wrote:There is never an acceptable reason to either participate in evil or to stand aside while it is happening. To be sure, there are times when we are forced to choose between two wrongs and must decide which wrong would cause the greater harm. But we should never compromise our conscience by pretending that the one wrong has become right.

And we should never fail to examine all of our convictions out of honesty with ourselves and be ruled, not by the head in our pants but, by the head on our shoulders. Beowulf's morality was only @ 50 % power by Saving the Manties' hides that may have been fried from a totally surprising invasion, but failing to consider what the trap and working with the enemy could do to the innocent lives of their own founding. It was morally wrong to endanger the lives of innocent Solarian citizens when it is the Mandarins and their corruption that Beowulf detests. Beowulf illegally took matters into their own hands. Illegal against the implied relationship they held with the League.

n7axw wrote:But that is really not applicable here. The Mandarins had every opportunity to apologize for Byng's destruction of those three Rolands in New Tuscany and make restitution to the families of the victims. They also had more than ample opportunity to apologize for and disavow Sandra Crandal's actions. Morally the League doesn't have a leg to stand on and its actions toward Beowulf can only be described as reprehensible.

Don

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Beowulf's actions against their own founding can be thought of as reprehensible to the League, the navy and the Mandarins.

filbert wrote:

pappilon wrote:About divorce, there's a hole in the fence between you and your neighbor, you've known about it for years, you know your wife's been "popping over" to visit the neighbor since the hole was discovered. And NOW you act all angry and enraged that "there's something awfuwwwy scwewy going on awound here." Now that she's filing for divorce?

Yes, but per the RFC quote just upthread, there WAS NO MARRIAGE. Beowulf was if anything just cohabiting the Solarian League. "Shacking up" as it were.

Mr. Solarian The Stud: "Hey, baby Beowulf, hows about you and me beat the crap out of this dude Manticore who's been strutting around lately?"

Ms. Beowulf: "Um, gee, Studly Solly my honey, that doesn't seem like a good idea to me."

Mr. Solarian: "You're my wife, you owe me!"

Ms. Beowulf: "Actually, Sol, we're just living together, we never actually got married. I can leave any time I want to, and I think I'll start packing."

Mr. Solarian: "Bitch! If you won't help me kill Manticore, I'LL KILL YOU!!!!"

Ms. Beowulf: "Oh, did I mention that Mr. Manticore has been teaching me self-defense? HI-KEEBA!"

Yeah, the disagreement is obviously TOTALLY Miss Beowulf's fault. I can see how a totally, completely, 100% unbiased, reasonable person could see it from Mr. Solarian's point of view.

Does the phrase "blame the victim" ring a bell with anyone?

I really like this post. I needed a good laugh.


Don't discount the implied human element of Common-law marriage.