Clue [UH Spoilers] Edition

quite possibly a cat wrote:So what actually counts as terrorism is a bit of a touchy subject. [url="premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."]Wikipedia says so![/url] They have a bunch of definitions. For example one def is "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."

Another one is "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives"

JohnRoth wrote:1. The Houdini coverup bombs. These were structured to look like Ballroom terror attacks, but the actual purpose was to hide the evidence of a mass evacuation.

If I remember correctly these were also designed to gin up anti-seccie feelings. Its a multi-purpose terrorist attack.

It depends on the primary purpose. The MAlign would not have done it except for the cover-up function, so I don't call it a terrorist attack.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:3. The bombs that Albrecht D. set off to close off everything that hadn't been evacuated when Tenth Fleet arrived. This was a coverup; any intent to look like a terrorist attack was secondary.

Well, Manticore is going to be yelling very loudly that they were being framed, so that's clearly a political goal. So terrorism.

You're reaching. As far as I can tell, it did NOT have a political goal. It was pure and simple a final cover-up that was designed as a last-ditch "we've been outed, but let's destroy all the evidence so nobody can prove anything" attempt that had been planned for almost from the beginning. I expect that if the Gamma Center hadn't gone, it would have gone in that set of explosions.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Plus, if they mention stuff like clandestine nano-weapon facilities people will have questions like "What was your plan for if they used those super advanced nano-weapons on you?" Manticore has already admitted it doesn't have a way of finding the nanoweapons before they trigger.

What does that have to do with the discussion to date?

quite possibly a cat wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
4. The Yawata strike. This was collateral damage from the attack on Manticore infrastructure. It was a clear violation of the Deneb Accords, but otherwise within the "laws of war."

That's more questionable. I would say it was either terrorism or piracy since it was an attack on (what the attackers believed) were neutral starbases.

However, if you the truth about Green Pines, it becomes super easy to claim it was a lawful act of war. Then Yawata certainly looks like a lawful act of war to anyone outside the Onion who knows the truth of Green Pines. I don't think the Deneb Accords require breaking stealth before striking.

However, somehow I don't think Manticore wants to make that argument. "Actually Yawata wasn't a terrorist attack! It was merely a lawful act of war we started by nuking Green Pines!" So it certainly looks like a terrorist attack unless Manticore is already caught for Green Pines. If Manticore has been caught for Green Pines they just look like they got a bunch of their own people killed.

This is totally off the wall. Oyster Bay was intended to neutralize Manticore, Haven and Grayson, possibly also the Anderman Empire. They moved it up to include only Manticore and Grayson for reasons, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with Green Pines. The plan had been in place long before Green Pines.

The Yawata Strike was collateral damage from Oyster Bay.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

tlb wrote:The Ballroom may have helped by supplying a list of sympathizers on Mesa; but the seccies were not members and the Ballroom was not involved in planning the action.

This is true.

Joat42 wrote:And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

JohnRoth wrote:

Joat42 wrote:And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.

Joat42 wrote:

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

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.[/quote]

There were some other places where there was cooperation. Of course, on Torch there was even more cooperation as people became citizens.

But the Ballroom went on after the formation of Torch. It still existed on Mesa, for example. It just changed its tactics.

Joat42 wrote:And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

JohnRoth wrote:The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Joat42 wrote:Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.

ldwechsler wrote:There were some other places where there was cooperation. Of course, on Torch there was even more cooperation as people became citizens.

But the Ballroom went on after the formation of Torch. It still existed on Mesa, for example. It just changed its tactics.

Do we know that the Ballroom continued on Mesa. or are you confused by the Mesan propaganda used to justify suppression of the seccies?

PS: please take better care of the quote end-quote combinations. I have straightened them out, but if you compare your post to the previous you will see the attributions are wrong.

Joat42 wrote:And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

JohnRoth wrote:The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Joat42 wrote:Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.

Not quite. First, Honor worked directly with the Ballroom in the novelette Let's Dance in the anthology In Fire Forged.

Second, in Cauldron of Ghosts it's said that the Dynamic Duo made contact with the Seccy revolutionary cell via Ballroom auspices. It's also said that the Ballroom's presence on Mesa had been pruned back after Green Pines, which strongly suggests that they still existed after CoS.

ldwechsler wrote:

Joat42 wrote:[uote="JohnRoth"]
And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.[/quote]

There were some other places where there was cooperation. Of course, on Torch there was even more cooperation as people became citizens.

But the Ballroom went on after the formation of Torch. It still existed on Mesa, for example. It just changed its tactics.[/quote]



There were very informal, off the books, under the table, etc etc. Deals done between Manticore and the Audubon Ballroom. E.g. Casamir, Manpower Incident

saber964 wrote:

Joat42 wrote:[uote="JohnRoth"]
And what terrorists have the GA and Beowulf a working history with?

quite possibly a cat wrote:The Ballroom, the seccies on Mesa and Firebrand.

The Ballroom, yes. Neither one has had anything to do with the seccies on Mesa, nor did they have anything to do with Firebrand - he was an MAlign agent.

Manticore has never worked with the Ballroom AFAIK except for the events in Crown of Slaves. And even that wasn't an official operation - it was a total spur of the moment thing with multiple parties to save the princess and wrest Verdant Vista from Manpower.

After that the Ballroom ceases to exist as an organisation.[/quote]

There were some other places where there was cooperation. Of course, on Torch there was even more cooperation as people became citizens.

But the Ballroom went on after the formation of Torch. It still existed on Mesa, for example. It just changed its tactics.[/quote]



There were very informal, off the books, under the table, etc etc. Deals done between Manticore and the Audubon Ballroom. E.g. Casamir, Manpower Incident[/quote]

There is only a paperwork difference between an official agreement and an informal one.

There are many ways to paper over agreements. The Germans are officially against Islamic terrorism but provide a lot of funds for Hamas, using the fiction that by funding "civilian pursuits" they are not allowing more money for weapons.

The US has had a lot of informal agreements with different groups.

Manticore is officially against slavery (albeit a few people in key places have done business with the slavers) and the Ballroom knows it. Eventually Jeremy X was in the same room with Elizabeth, Benjamin and Eloise.

The Yawata Attack was 1/2 of the abreviated Oyster Bay.

Manticore neither planned, orchestrated nor approved (it had no idea it was going to happen) the Green Pines attack.

The Alignment struck at Beowulf during the SLN attack:

1) out of pure revenge by it's leadership because it's head miscalculated when Manticore and friends would show up at Mesa,
2) to inflict massive casualties and destruction on Beowulf and - very precisely and carefully structure it to say- WE WANT TO HURT YOU AND WE HAVE HURT YOU AND THERE IS DAM ALL YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT- because they feel that Beowulf is the cause of all of their needing to hide the uplift of Humanity (for the chosen, genetically modified super beings) from the rest of the Normals till the Alignment can take over and rule from the shadows as puppet masters.
3) Thumb their collective noses at the GA and prove the Alignment is smarter and more cleaver...cue the French taunting Arthur from the top of the castle battlements- except the Alignment is still hiding out in the dark.

At least the Alignment is fairly sure it won't do well in a standup fight with the GA. It is just going to have to use the Renesesance Faction and what I am sure is a host of other sacrificial constructs to bleed for it and take the blame for the death and destruction it plans to mete out to the rest of the known universe until it can become the Overloads they want to be.

Cynical, I know, but we have watched them do this crap (along with the various prehistory pieces) for so many books, I find it hard to think they are going to suddenly become anything like open about this.

Brigade XO wrote:The Yawata Attack was 1/2 of the abreviated Oyster Bay.

Manticore neither planned, orchestrated nor approved (it had no idea it was going to happen) the Green Pines attack.

The Alignment struck at Beowulf during the SLN attack:

1) out of pure revenge by it's leadership because it's head miscalculated when Manticore and friends would show up at Mesa,
2) to inflict massive casualties and destruction on Beowulf and - very precisely and carefully structure it to say- WE WANT TO HURT YOU AND WE HAVE HURT YOU AND THERE IS DAM ALL YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT- because they feel that Beowulf is the cause of all of their needing to hide the uplift of Humanity (for the chosen, genetically modified super beings) from the rest of the Normals till the Alignment can take over and rule from the shadows as puppet masters.
3) Thumb their collective noses at the GA and prove the Alignment is smarter and more cleaver...cue the French taunting Arthur from the top of the castle battlements- except the Alignment is still hiding out in the dark.

At least the Alignment is fairly sure it won't do well in a standup fight with the GA. It is just going to have to use the Renesesance Faction and what I am sure is a host of other sacrificial constructs to bleed for it and take the blame for the death and destruction it plans to mete out to the rest of the known universe until it can become the Overloads they want to be.

Cynical, I know, but we have watched them do this crap (along with the various prehistory pieces) for so many books, I find it hard to think they are going to suddenly become anything like open about this.

In a straight up battle the MAlign is likely to lose at this point. Not only does the GA have hundreds of ships of the wall, they are led and manned by veterans. MAlign's captains have not had major battles.

Also, the big tech advantage they had because of their stealth qualities has been erased more than a bit. Once the scientists got hold of the traces they left behind, they should be able to reverse engineer the whole thing, minimally being able to trace it a lot better.

Add to that, even using the spider drive becomes really good evidence they were behind Oyster Bay. Major trials, anyone?

Simoes will help on that as well as providing a lot of info on the streak drive.

ldwechsler wrote:
Also, the big tech advantage they had because of their stealth qualities has been erased more than a bit. Once the scientists got hold of the traces they left behind, they should be able to reverse engineer the whole thing, minimally being able to trace it a lot better..

Hark, is that a sonic boom I hear? Quick, get me a pad, as I now need to draw how to build a Mach 6 hypersonic missile that I have discovered by hearing the sonic boom.