Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

George J. Smith wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:I only have a couple of questions about the whole Green Pines affair.

Is it not something like a terrorist act to plant a nuclear weapon (or demolition device) in a secret installation specificaly built under a major commercial business tower to hide said secret instillation and then use that device to (at any time) to obliterate the commercial tower, particularly if there are any non-combatants in it.
[Ok, the Alignment doesn't consider anybody an actual non-combatant. If they are not Alignment they are "normals" and less than useful animals. If there is the chance the installation is going to be compromised, it is to be destroyed- what is above it is "just camouflage"]

So, Zilwicki disabled the locator beacons on the nuclear "construction demolition charges". Really? Nobody in the government of a planet that has a gigantic slave and Seccie population has any idea where "commercial nuclear demolitions devices" are at any given time? You mean that locator beacons were NOT BROADCASTING WHERE THEY WERE?. So the construction company or the materials supply house that stocked said NUCLEAR DEVICES didn't have some idea that they were no longer where they were supposed to be?
Really?
Some a couple of Seccies waltzed into a storage facility for NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES and just snuck a couple of them out of what has to be REALLY REALLY SECURE STORAGE and nobody -anybody, everybody, the methead on the gate- didn't have a clue that they were gone?
And if nobody reports them missing (after a regular ....right....inventory check on NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES....the locator beacons don't are not activated. Somebody has to:
1) Know they are gone.
2) Tell somebody- the boss, the head of thier security, the GOVERNMENT
3) Only then does some person in a cubicle somewhere punch in some long string of numbers and tells the LOCATOR DEVICE on that/those NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICEs to turn on and broad cast where they are....if they aren't in a shielded location which both defeats the command to turn on and the beacon if it happens to activate (like if it has been X time since it was last inventoried and told--nice explosive- just sit here quietly and don't generate a lot of electronic noise that might upset some other part of your software/hardware.

Sure, just an everyday occurance in your average planet that has something like 3 levels of police forces just to deal with and keep on top of the slaves and Seccies not to mention the Planetary PeaceForce. What's a few NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES in a shed somewhere (well, a warehouse perhaps) for a civilian company that needs some truly massive explosions from time to time to "move dirt".
I don't buy it.
Lets move into Criminal Negligence and about 50 broken laws. Before we get to Zilwiki.

Maybe it was the weekend or a public holiday and there was no-one in the office.

n7axw wrote:They obviously had a different view of nukes than we do. The whole notion of using them as commercial blasting devices on construction sites boggles the mind for us.

ldwechsler wrote:There were two nukes used. One belonged to the Mesan leadership and was set off by one of their people.

Brigade XO wrote:I only have a couple of questions about the whole Green Pines affair.

Is it not something like a terrorist act to plant a nuclear weapon (or demolition device) in a secret installation specificaly built under a major commercial business tower to hide said secret instillation and then use that device to (at any time) to obliterate the commercial tower, particularly if there are any non-combatants in it.
[Ok, the Alignment doesn't consider anybody an actual non-combatant. If they are not Alignment they are "normals" and less than useful animals. If there is the chance the installation is going to be compromised, it is to be destroyed- what is above it is "just camouflage"]

So, Zilwicki disabled the locator beacons on the nuclear "construction demolition charges". Really? Nobody in the government of a planet that has a gigantic slave and Seccie population has any idea where "commercial nuclear demolitions devices" are at any given time? You mean that locator beacons were NOT BROADCASTING WHERE THEY WERE?. So the construction company or the materials supply house that stocked said NUCLEAR DEVICES didn't have some idea that they were no longer where they were supposed to be?
Really?
Some a couple of Seccies waltzed into a storage facility for NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES and just snuck a couple of them out of what has to be REALLY REALLY SECURE STORAGE and nobody -anybody, everybody, the methead on the gate- didn't have a clue that they were gone?
And if nobody reports them missing (after a regular ....right....inventory check on NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES....the locator beacons don't are not activated. Somebody has to:
1) Know they are gone.
2) Tell somebody- the boss, the head of thier security, the GOVERNMENT
3) Only then does some person in a cubicle somewhere punch in some long string of numbers and tells the LOCATOR DEVICE on that/those NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICEs to turn on and broad cast where they are....if they aren't in a shielded location which both defeats the command to turn on and the beacon if it happens to activate (like if it has been X time since it was last inventoried and told--nice explosive- just sit here quietly and don't generate a lot of electronic noise that might upset some other part of your software/hardware.

Sure, just an everyday occurance in your average planet that has something like 3 levels of police forces just to deal with and keep on top of the slaves and Seccies not to mention the Planetary PeaceForce. What's a few NUCLEAR DEMOLITION DEVICES in a shed somewhere (well, a warehouse perhaps) for a civilian company that needs some truly massive explosions from time to time to "move dirt".
I don't buy it.
Lets move into Criminal Negligence and about 50 broken laws. Before we get to Zilwiki.

Jonathan_S wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:There were two nukes used. One belonged to the Mesan leadership and was set off by one of their people.

Three nukes,
In addition to the Gamma Center and Green Pines there was the one set off in an abandoned building, where Anton had hacked the security feeds, to make it look like they got blown up attempting to flee the planet.

kzt wrote:I just gave you the car bomb, how could I possibly expect you might really set it off? I took elaborate steps to ensure you wouldn't use it to blow up the preschool you kept talking about blowing up. Namely I told you not to do that, then sent you out on your own to drive around with the car bomb.

How could I possibly be considered responsible for this in any way? Clearly it is really the fault of Ford, who didn't build their vans with anti-car bomb systems and allowed a potential car bomber to buy one.

Brigade XO wrote:I only have a couple of questions about the whole Green Pines affair.

Is it not something like a terrorist act to plant a nuclear weapon (or demolition device) in a secret installation specificaly built under a major commercial business tower to hide said secret instillation and then use that device to (at any time) to obliterate the commercial tower, particularly if there are any non-combatants in it.

kzt wrote:I just gave you the car bomb, how could I possibly expect you might really set it off? I took elaborate steps to ensure you wouldn't use it to blow up the preschool you kept talking about blowing up. Namely I told you not to do that, then sent you out on your own to drive around with the car bomb.

How could I possibly be considered responsible for this in any way? Clearly it is really the fault of Ford, who didn't build their vans with anti-car bomb systems and allowed a potential car bomber to buy one.

Bluesqueak wrote:

kzt wrote:I just gave you the car bomb, how could I possibly expect you might really set it off? I took elaborate steps to ensure you wouldn't use it to blow up the preschool you kept talking about blowing up. Namely I told you not to do that, then sent you out on your own to drive around with the car bomb.

How could I possibly be considered responsible for this in any way? Clearly it is really the fault of Ford, who didn't build their vans with anti-car bomb systems and allowed a potential car bomber to buy one.

The problem with this scenario is that it did not happen in the book.

I say again, it did not happen in the book.



Now, if we want to discuss a scenario where Zilwicki steals the nuke, hands it to David, orders him to go plant the bomb despite hearing him say he'd love to blow up somewhere like Green Pines, we can. In fact, I think we have been, for quite some time. But it isn't in the book that David Weber wrote.

In the book he wrote, the Seccie resistance fighters steal the nuke, the Seccie resistance fighters put David in charge of it (despite hearing how he'd love to blow up somewhere like Green Pines),and the Seccie resistance fighters decide to help Anton and Victor escape with the vital information.

Anton's contribution is to remove the locator so that they don't all get captured and provide the group with a set of plans for its detonation that are designed to minimise civilian casualties. Later, he suggests that detonating the bomb would now be pointless, and asks Carl to tell David and Karen to stand down and go to ground.

An enemy agent of a nation at legally declared war with Mesa gives technical advice to a local resistance group. Colour me shocked.

As @Papillion has said, we can't give Zilwicki omniscient powers, or hand him complete control of a group he doesn't have control over, or basically turn him into someone who failed to use his godlike powers to stop a nuclear explosion.

Because, did I mention, the above scenario did not happen in the book?