runsforcelery wrote:Uncompromising Honor wrote:]“That’s probably true,” she said now. “And given how long it took us to reverse-engineer the splitter technology even after we ‘acquired’ a few specimens to work from,cthia wrote:What is this splitter technology? Does it have to do with the gravity lensing in the warheads?runsforcelery wrote:If you were the League --- or, rather, competent intelligence officers working for the League --- would you unquestioningly accept that just because the Manties say Mesa is behind verything Mesa really is behind everything? They don't know if someone is playing the Manties and selling them a bill of goods which depends on the fact that Manticore and Haven both hate Mesa so much that they'll even but the notion of a conspiracy that's been around totally undetected for 5-600 years if they're told its coming from Mesa.
Daud and the others have come far enough to accept (unlike anyone else in the League's so-called intelligence agencies) that there really is a conspiracy out there which is manipulating the League's policy towards the SEM (and now the GA). Until they know for sure who it is, though, they aren't about to invest in the notion that it has to be Mesa . . . and don the intellectual blinders that come with "knowing" who the enemy is.
The truth is, these are probably a group of the most effective Honorverse in-universe analysts you guys have ever seen. These people are smart and they're dedicated. Which makes them dangerous.
As for the splitter technology, I know this has been explained somewhere in the books. A missile's impeller nodes generate such concentrated gravity "waves" hat, without the splitter technology Manticore developed to insert a baffle between them, impeller nodes would have to be at least fifty or sixty meters apart to prevent the first set of nodes from "eating" the second set before it can come on line. That's why you couldn't build a launcher-sized MDM until Roger's boffins came up with the splitter.cthia wrote:I understand that part, RFC. But my internalizing is that if the Manties are correct that there is a hidden player in the works, then they're probably also most likely correct about the name on the hidden face? If a=b and b=c then a=c.
Except that neobarbs can't possibly be batting a thousand?
Appears George rang the bell regarding the splitter tech.
Nope. It's their job to always remember that b may not equal c. Suppose that I can convince the League to go after the Manties. Suppose that the last thing I want is for the Manties to actually appear reasonable and rational in the eyes of the Solly public. And then suppose that I say to myself, "You know, the Manties are fanatics about Mesa and the slave trade, but most of the League could give a damn. So how's about I find a way to suggest to the Manties that a batch of evil genetic supermen from Mesa have been trying to overthrow the galaxy for six hundred years and then get them to actually say that for the public record? Genetic supermen? Conspiracies that have been hidden for six hundred years and are able to play the most powerful nation in human history as a violin?! Oh, come on, here! Nobody's going to buy that, so the default assumption will be that the Manties are either lunatics or lying."
Daud and company aren't saying that is what's happening. They're saying it's what may be happening and that it is their job and overriding responsibility to accept nothing at face value until they can prove it one way or the other. As such, they avoid doing that even in their own minds, because they can't afford to cultivate a habit of thought which may turn out to be inaccurate, since it will affect how they interpret new data as it becomes available.
Ok, thanks. It all makes sense. They are keeping an open mind and remaining completely neutral all along the way and not allowing themselves to be influenced by anyone anymore, let alone enemy combatants.* I guess I shouldn't begrudge them for finally going about it correctly, even if they are so late to the intel party.
*As I think about it, it's the correct attitude. I remember a similar discussion about vetting, and how a government should effect their own vetting and not necessarily trust, wholeheartedly, even an ally's intel.