Clue [UH Spoilers] Edition

Dauntless wrote:blaming the ballroom is for solly audience

the GA would know that it is very unlikely that ballroom would attack beowulf.

The point is moot anyway, in the mind of the average Solly it was the SLN who did it.

Joat42 wrote:

Dauntless wrote:blaming the ballroom is for solly audience

the GA would know that it is very unlikely that ballroom would attack beowulf.

The point is moot anyway, in the mind of the average Solly it was the SLN who did it.

The most obvious thing is that the GA could use the whole thing as a point about Mesa.

If SOMEONE ELSE could manage to do the really horrid damage done to the Beowulf population, why couldn't they do it on Mesa?

And since the Ghost Hunters on Terra know about the MAlign, they could use it to at least partially absolve the Sollies. And when people don't want to feel like mass murderers, they are far more likely to rush towards an absolving explanation.

ldwechsler wrote:..snip..
The most obvious thing is that the GA could use the whole thing as a point about Mesa.

Not really, the perception that the SLN was guilty gave Honor the really big stick she needed to break the Mandarins and the League.

But what information is exchanged behind closed doors is a completely different matter.

Dauntless wrote:blaming the ballroom is for solly audience

the GA would know that it is very unlikely that ballroom would attack beowulf.

The GA upper level government officials know. The general populace on the other hand, I doubt. Nor can the GA officials go on the record and defend the Ballroom without committing political suicide. Can you imagine the attack adds?

"Hi. My opponent defends terrorists. She thinks their good people who can be trusted not to murder countless civilians. [quote of opponent defending terrorists] I think that terrorists and murderers are bad people, who should be prosecuted. Vote Not A Terrorist and I'll do my very best to keep you safe from terrorists. I'm Not A Terrorist and I approve this message."

Joat42 wrote:The point is moot anyway, in the mind of the average Solly it was the SLN who did it.

I didn't get that at all. In fact, the SLN was gone when the bombs went off. More to the point these were internal explosions, Beowulf is unlikely to lie about the cause, and there are probably countless recordings from neutral sources. Honor claimed the SLN did was responsible, and that might temporarily convince some particularly gullible folks, but I can't imagine it will hold long-term.
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Hmm... it occurs to me that the Yawata Strike can be called the Yawata Terrorist attacks as well. Anything to start up anti-terrorist fervor!

ldwechsler wrote:The most obvious thing is that the GA could use the whole thing as a point about Mesa.

If SOMEONE ELSE could manage to do the really horrid damage done to the Beowulf population, why couldn't they do it on Mesa?

That IS a downside of this whole spin. By claiming Mesa is crawling with nuke tossing terrorists it makes it possible that terrorists were responsible for everything that happened at Mesa. Except... the GA was in league with the terrorist behind the Green Pines massacre.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

Joat42 wrote:The point is moot anyway, in the mind of the average Solly it was the SLN who did it.

I didn't get that at all. In fact, the SLN was gone when the bombs went off. More to the point these were internal explosions, Beowulf is unlikely to lie about the cause, and there are probably countless recordings from neutral sources. Honor claimed the SLN did was responsible, and that might temporarily convince some particularly gullible folks, but I can't imagine it will hold long-term.

Honor went to Sol, smashed up the system and told everyone that the SLN attack on Beowulf resulted in 43 million dead.

The SLN TF had already tried to suckerpunch Beowulf with the Hastas, who is to say they didn't launch more of them targeting the habitats?

And given operation Buccaneer, it's an established fact that the SLN was fully prepared to commit EE violations.

And does it really matter that what was left of SLN TF 790 had already left Beowulf when the habitats where destroyed?

Most of this will be verified by independent sources and who is going to say they are wrong?

And Beowulf doesn't have to lie, they just don't have to speak up correcting the misconception people have.

The average sollie may be skeptical right now but what are they going to believe in the long run? That parties unknown blew up habitats in Beowulf during an SLN attack or that the SLN just continued with the same tactic as they did in Operation Buccaneer.

Think of the type of news coverage there will be when the Mandarins stand trial and all the dirty details on the operations they had SLN do against Manticore and other star nations. The average sollie will conclude that the corrupt Mandarins and the SLN where responsible.

Joat42 wrote:Snip…
Think of the type of news coverage there will be when the Mandarins stand trial and all the dirty details on the operations they had SLN do against Manticore and other star nations. The average sollie will conclude that the corrupt Mandarins and the SLN where responsible.

I hope there is a anthology with a short story of the Mandarins trial.

Joat42 wrote:
Most of this will be verified by independent sources and who is going to say they are wrong?

Lots, and lots of people. The independent sources will be able to say it was an internal explosion. They were set off in sequence with plenty of time for everyone to point cameras at the habitats to get nice high quality recordings showing the internal nature of the explosion.

Manticore probably will too, since they really, really want people to believe the narrative of "The Malign is going around framing Star Nations for atrocities".

Oh, Beowulf will too because it was there people who died and they are going to want to bring the people who did it to justice. They can't do that, if everyone thinks the Mandarins did it.

And Beowulf doesn't have to lie, they just don't have to speak up correcting the misconception people have.

That will work right up until the voters and people of Beowulf demand to know what the happened. You think Beowulf will go radio silent on this?

Imagine if after 9/11 the response of the U.S. government was: "Oh we're not gonna talk about it. We have no opinion on who did it."

quite possibly a cat wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Most of this will be verified by independent sources and who is going to say they are wrong?

Lots, and lots of people. The independent sources will be able to say it was an internal explosion. They were set off in sequence with plenty of time for everyone to point cameras at the habitats to get nice high quality recordings showing the internal nature of the explosion.

Manticore probably will too, since they really, really want people to believe the narrative of "The Malign is going around framing Star Nations for atrocities".

Oh, Beowulf will too because it was there people who died and they are going to want to bring the people who did it to justice. They can't do that, if everyone thinks the Mandarins did it.

And Beowulf doesn't have to lie, they just don't have to speak up correcting the misconception people have.

That will work right up until the voters and people of Beowulf demand to know what the happened. You think Beowulf will go radio silent on this?

Imagine if after 9/11 the response of the U.S. government was: "Oh we're not gonna talk about it. We have no opinion on who did it."

Hmmm.. I concede the point that it would be stupid if the GA didn't use the explosions to blame the MA. I'm wondering if they are going wait until the trials at Sol has concluded or not.

And I'm also unsure if it is going to persuade a majority of the average sollies in the short term, there where so much propaganda being pumped out demonizing Beowulf and Manticore right up to the moment Honor smashed Sol.

It's an interesting conundrum for the average sollie, do they believe that the SLN did it or was it the shadowy organisation the Manties have been screaming about for the last years? And then it gets even stranger for them when the GA starts claiming it wasn't the SLN who blew up the habs, especially considering that the SLN did EE violations on other star systems.

Joat42 wrote:
Hmmm.. I concede the point that it would be stupid if the GA didn't use the explosions to blame the MA. I'm wondering if they are going wait until the trials at Sol has concluded or not.

If they wait until the trials are over, they'll just look like a) liars and b) weren't bothering with fair trials. The part where they look like liars is the real issue because they need people to trust them. At a minimum most of the GA needs their voters to trust them.

And I'm also unsure if it is going to persuade a majority of the average sollies in the short term, there where so much propaganda being pumped out demonizing Beowulf and Manticore right up to the moment Honor smashed Sol.

Yeah, now all they need to demonize Manticore is the The Geneva Conventions.

It's an interesting conundrum for the average sollie, do they believe that the SLN did it or was it the shadowy organisation the Manties have been screaming about for the last years? And then it gets even stranger for them when the GA starts claiming it wasn't the SLN who blew up the habs, especially considering that the SLN did EE violations on other star systems.

Or they could just believe it was terrorists without believing these terrorists were part of some long running super conspiracy. Although in the end, the main goal is getting the narrative focused on terrorists.

Even if the GA convinces everyone of their big conspiracy, they won't convince people to treat terrorists like individual special snowflakes. The more spooky power that the GA attributes to a terrorist group, the scarier terrorists become and the bigger of an issue they become. So the Opposition parties and other governments just need to hammer that home. The fact that the GA is in bed with (a totally different group) terrorists does the rest. The Malign on Darius will be less than pleased, but even so as long as people are looking for terrorists or terrorist supporters and killing/jailing them they can just sit back, relax and watch.

Ultimately this is the truth: the Mesa attacks, the Yawata Strike and Beowulf attacks were terrorist attacks. Millions of people dying was the result of terrorists being allowed to run rampant and infesting the corridors of power. The GA and Beowulf have a history of working with terrorists.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Ultimately this is the truth: the Mesa attacks, the Yawata Strike and Beowulf attacks were terrorist attacks. Millions of people dying was the result of terrorists being allowed to run rampant and infesting the corridors of power. The GA and Beowulf have a history of working with terrorists.

I have a quibble with your statement. A terrorist attack's primary purpose is to instill terror, if the primary purpose of an attack isn't terror is it still a terrorist attack?

The Mesa bombings primary purpose was to hide evidence.
The Yawata Strike primary purpose was to eliminate Manticore military infrastructure and ship building capacity.
The Beowulf habitat attack primary purpose was terror.

So my ultimate truth is that there where only 1 terrorist attack.

And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?