GregD wrote:runsforcelery wrote:There are all kinds of reasons for Eloise not to have personally negotiated with or sent a special envoy, outside the High Ridge negotiators, to Haven. Part of it is constitutional, since she would have been stepping on a Parliamentary prerogative to do anything of the sort without the approval and support of the current government (which was High Ridge's). Part of it is that fact that she hated and distrusted all Peeps, and with damned good cause. Part of it was that as has been pointed out she had no idea if the Theisman-Pritchart government was ultimately going to stand or fall. Part of it was that the (accurate) rumors that Theisman had simply shot Saint-Just out of hand without even a pretense of due process left his escutcheon just a tad tarnished in her eyes . . . and suggested that he wasn't all that different from Saint-Just (and, of course, it was well known that Pritchart had been a leading terrorist, assassin, and murderer before the Pierre Coup and then served the SS as a political commissar).
My point here is that it would never have occurred to her to send a treecat-augmented "fact-finding mission" to Nouveau Paris for a whole bunch of reasons, including the fact that right up until the very verge of Operation Thunderbolt, the treecats wouldn't have been able to communicate very much except "we like these guys" about what they were picking up.
That, however, is secondary — if not tertiary — to the fact that all the evidence she possessed told her that there was no significant difference between the Theisman-Pritchart regime and the Pierre-Saint-Just regime. Both had come to power in a violent coup, both of them had ruthlessly eliminated the group previously in power, one of them was a self-confessed terrorist/assassin, and they were currently involved in a four-way (or more) civil war, so it wasn't at all clear for quite a while that they were even going to survive.
Frankly, it didn't matter who they were or how they might differ from the preceding regime(s). I mean, literally, it did not matter, for a bunch of reasons. One was that the Havenite navy was totally out-classed against the RMN. There was no way that any Havenite admiral was going to be stupid enough to go up against the Royal Manticoran Navy when Haven didn't even have podnoughts yet, much less the MDMs to put aboard them, and according to all of her intelligence agencies, that was the case. I mentioned that she had a little of the Manticoran hubris herself, but that's another way of saying that she was guided by the expert analysis of all of her intelligence agencies. And what they were telling her was that Haven had been totally defeated (militarily), whether or not Nouveau Paris had been occupied, and that — judging from the self-evident capabilities of the ships actually engaged in their civil war (bearing in mind that Theisman was deliberately concealing the existence of the SD(P)s being built at Bolthole) — there was no prospect whatsoever of Haven being able to successfully resume hostilities. That's why she was so focused on the domestic front.
Which is my point.
Grayson sending Steadholder Harrington to negotiate a peace treaty with Haven is not a "private diplomatic mission". Now, the fact that Steadholder Harrington is also Duchess Harrington, and that SH / DH has had a long talk with the Queen before heading off on the mission, means that any treaty reached will be acceptable to the Queen, and to the people of Manticore, is a nice benefit.
But the Treaty's being negotiated between Grayson and Haven.
The reason for Elizabeth to get on board is that they end of the war destroys her domestic enemies.
1: The fact that Harrington can get a Treaty, when the High Ridge gov't "couldn't", makes that gov't, and everyone associated with it, look bad in the public eye.
2: The end of the war ends a bunch of taxes the HRG was using to buy allies
3: The end of the war means they can't delay elections any longer, which means the San Martin Lords get added. Which means the power center in the Lords gets shifted significantly towards Elizabeth
The point isn't to be kind to those poor Havenites, the point is to eviscerate High Ridge et. al.
GregD, this is a total nonstarter. First, because it would be literally impossible for Elizabeth to convince anyone that this whole elaborate circle was
not her doing an end run around Parliament. And the reason she couldn't, is that is precisely what it
would be. Moreover, she has a much greater respect for the fundamental constitution of the Star Kingdom than you appear to have. Grayson is not going to be able to negotiate a peace treaty ---
especially if they send Steadholder Harrington --- which a single soul in the SKM would see as anything but the Crown subverting the constitution through a legal fiction, and the damage to the Constitution would be . . . extreme. Yes, in the short term she might have forced a fait accompli on High Ridge. Frankly, I doubt it; it's much more likely that the entire damned House of Lords, including her supporters, would have lined up
against the farrago of lies and pretenses wrapped up in this proposal because
they would've seen the disastrous precedent this would establish down the road.
Legally, Elizabeth could, indeed, argue that she had nothing to do with it. In fact, everyone would know better, and the damage would be done. This is why she saw the issue with High Ridge in domestic terms from the very beginning. There was no possible upside for her (given her understanding of the interstellar situation at that time) in this sort of end run
except breaking High Ridge's kneecaps, and as I've said before, the Wintons have always taken the long view where the Constitution is concerned. She wasn't going to do it, and, frankly, she would have been
wrong to do it, assuming that one has any respect for the rule of law and the constitutional limitations on the executive.
Now, had blood still been being shed, had High Ridge refused to negotiate seriously while people were being killed, then, yes, she might have gone ahead and done it anyway on the theory that the loss of life
now trumps potential longterm constitutional issues.
That was not the case, however. Everything Elizabeth did or didn't do has to be seen through the lens of what she knew about Havenite capabilities and intentions
at the time.
