Has anyone else decided to root against Manticore?

cthia wrote:
Also remember, it was a balancing act the MA performed trying to prop up the SL to be destroyed, but not before doing damage to the new danger on the horizon - the GA. The centuries long goal was the fall of the SL. It would have been ironic to give the League too much intel and technical help since they were mainly trying to kill it for centuries. It was a tight rope they walked.

Yup. Besides, Manticore can be finished off at leisure via planet busting. Manticore can't retaliate since it doesn't know Darius's location.

Really, the MAlign is probably pissed. Honor comes in and instead of dissolving the League she gets everyone to come in and hammer out a functional League. AND she removes a large chunk of Sols industry, while leaving the labor force intact, which is just going to result in Sol having a much more modern industry. AND she decides to commit a war crime, so th League has something to rally around. (You can't destroy civilian property for kicks and giggles, doing so is a war crime.) I think the MAlign is probably going "WHAT?!? WHY?!? HOW?!? WWWHHHYYYY!!!!!"

cthia wrote:Don't hate us because we're morally responsible, worthy, decent, caring, respectful and fortunate enough to own the MWJ. And please don't hate us because God is on our side.

Umm... Manticore's leadership is evil. You do not murder civilian targets if you have a scrap of decency, goodness or humanity. Manticore did. FFS, Anton did it as a distraction. With nukes. Manticore has lie detecting cats and had a chance to debrief Anton, so either the leadership knows and did nothing or they don't even care. Either way they are monsters.

Nor is the rot just in the leadership. When Honor pointed a gun at a prisoner, one who was not attacking and had not been tried, with plans to kill she should have been stopped instantly, and if she survived she should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not one person acted to stop her.

Nor is the rot just in the military/government. Manticore is mildly democratic. Case Lacoon was an undeclared attack on we don't know how many neutral star nations that happened to have a WH. It was an act of piracy, and until Manticore those pirates are mostly dead or jailed Manticore bears the weight of that sin. Yes, supporters mean anyone who provided materials, money, housing, food etc. to the pirates or the pirate organization.

Honestly, at this point I'm hoping for vampires to show up and kill all the bad guys. Or I suppose if we want to stick with the scifi theme some sort of nanoweapon that can move through the air, self-replicate, take over bodies and simulate brains to fake intelligence. Bonus points if it makes snarky remarks about not having free will. "Oh no, I'm not making a threat! I'm just a soulless program. I'm just warning you if you resist all these nice people will die. Feel free to murder them anytime."

GloriousRuse wrote:“Orbital industry represents centuries, maybe millennia, of development” becomes “our recovery estimates are excellent! The lines will be functional sometime next year!”

Really all this destruction represents an excellent investment opportunity for other people. Sure Manticore's wealthy folks would suffer, but who cares about them? If I was an amoral transstellar who wanted profit I would move money into Beowulf and use that to build stuff to take the now empty economic niches in Manticore. Now I could collect the rents that were previously going to Manticorians. This is hampered somewhat because Manticore lost a bunch of workers, but there will still be some.

P.S. Here is an Economist article giving a brief summary of disaster and economic effects. The tl;dr is that geological disasters (no chance to evac, like Oyster Bay) could result in persistent damage to the economy while weather disasters (people have time to evacuate, like an Honorcaine) can actually lead to a bounce in GDP if it forces people to modernize stuff while rebuilding. In other words Honor came in fixed the Solarian League Constitution and then helped them modernize their industry.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Really, the MAlign is probably pissed. Honor comes in and instead of dissolving the League she gets everyone to come in and hammer out a functional League. AND she removes a large chunk of Sols industry, while leaving the labor force intact, which is just going to result in Sol having a much more modern industry. AND she decides to commit a war crime, so the League has something to rally around. (You can't destroy civilian property for kicks and giggles, doing so is a war crime.) I think the MAlign is probably going "WHAT?!? WHY?!? HOW?!? WWWHHHYYYY!!!!!"

I do not believe that is correct in modern warfare. Honor gave sufficient time to evacuate, so civilian casualties were limited. But in a modern economy almost all industry can be considered war industry: certainly all mining and manufacturing facilities are.

Honor did all that you said, except commit a war crime; she was more considerate than any of the strategic bomber commands in WWII.

tlb wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:Really, the MAlign is probably pissed. Honor comes in and instead of dissolving the League she gets everyone to come in and hammer out a functional League. AND she removes a large chunk of Sols industry, while leaving the labor force intact, which is just going to result in Sol having a much more modern industry. AND she decides to commit a war crime, so the League has something to rally around. (You can't destroy civilian property for kicks and giggles, doing so is a war crime.) I think the MAlign is probably going "WHAT?!? WHY?!? HOW?!? WWWHHHYYYY!!!!!"

I do not believe that is correct in modern warfare. Honor gave sufficient time to evacuate, so civilian casualties were limited. But in a modern economy almost all industry can be considered war industry: certainly all mining and manufacturing facilities are.

Honor did all that you said, except commit a war crime; she was more considerate than any of the strategic bomber commands in WWII.

----------------

I do not know the details of the Deneb Accords but must assume they are at least modeled after the Hague and Geneva Conventions of this tome and universe (only RFC knows for sure).
Under Geneva, major industrial, power and transportation centers are legitimate military targets, as are shipping.
In theory, attackers are supposed to allow time for evacuation of civilians (some German U-Boats actually did this early in WWII) but mostly this has been the exception.
SLN Operation Buccaneer and Parthian Shot actions were textev noted as violations of Deneb, thus placing the commanders and their chain of command in War Criminal status.
Note that Honor acted to force the SL authorities to arrest the Mandarins under their own civil/military authority and turn them over for trial -- in some ways paralleling the post-WWII War Crimes Trials.
Erewhon and Andermani forces did not participate in the GA-SL operation so they MAY be possible "Neutral Locations" for trials, however Erewhon does not have a death penalty.

Just a few thoughts.
Let the bloodletting continue

-- Stewart

tlb wrote:I do not believe that is correct in modern warfare. Honor gave sufficient time to evacuate, so civilian casualties were limited. But in a modern economy almost all industry can be considered war industry: certainly all mining and manufacturing facilities are.

Honor did all that you said, except commit a war crime; she was more considerate than any of the strategic bomber commands in WWII.

Its absolutely true in modern war.
War Crime from wikipedia.

Examples of war crimes include ... destroying civilian property,

More specifically
the Geneva Conventions for occupied areas, which Sol was.
Or the Hague

(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

You can destroy civilian property or take civilian property when there is an actual need to contribute to the war effort, but NOT as some form of group punishment. Honor's stated purpose was to make the Solarians pay attention aka group punishment. Furthermore, Manticore had control of the facilities. The facilities were NOT contributing to the Solarian Leagues war effort, nor was the Solarian League capable of retaking said facilities. Plus, the system had effectively surrendered and the stations had been occupied.

I don't believe any WWII strategic bomber commands targeted territory they already had occupied. They bombed areas that were still under enemy control. No one went into every German factory, set demolition charges and then detonated them after taking control of an area.

quite possibly a cat wrote: No one went into every German factory, set demolition charges and then detonated them after taking control of an area.

No, they loaded the factory equipment on rail cars and kidnapped the factory staff to run it in the Ukraine. After raping every female between the age of 8 and 80.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

cthia wrote:
Also remember, it was a balancing act the MA performed trying to prop up the SL to be destroyed, but not before doing damage to the new danger on the horizon - the GA. The centuries long goal was the fall of the SL. It would have been ironic to give the League too much intel and technical help since they were mainly trying to kill it for centuries. It was a tight rope they walked.

Yup. Besides, Manticore can be finished off at leisure via planet busting. Manticore can't retaliate since it doesn't know Darius's location.

Really, the MAlign is probably pissed. Honor comes in and instead of dissolving the League she gets everyone to come in and hammer out a functional League. AND she removes a large chunk of Sols industry, while leaving the labor force intact, which is just going to result in Sol having a much more modern industry. AND she decides to commit a war crime, so th League has something to rally around. (You can't destroy civilian property for kicks and giggles, doing so is a war crime.) I think the MAlign is probably going "WHAT?!? WHY?!? HOW?!? WWWHHHYYYY!!!!!"

cthia wrote:Don't hate us because we're morally responsible, worthy, decent, caring, respectful and fortunate enough to own the MWJ. And please don't hate us because God is on our side.

Umm... Manticore's leadership is evil. You do not murder civilian targets if you have a scrap of decency, goodness or humanity. Manticore did. FFS, Anton did it as a distraction. With nukes. Manticore has lie detecting cats and had a chance to debrief Anton, so either the leadership knows and did nothing or they don't even care. Either way they are monsters.

Nor is the rot just in the leadership. When Honor pointed a gun at a prisoner, one who was not attacking and had not been tried, with plans to kill she should have been stopped instantly, and if she survived she should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not one person acted to stop her.

Nor is the rot just in the military/government. Manticore is mildly democratic. Case Lacoon was an undeclared attack on we don't know how many neutral star nations that happened to have a WH. It was an act of piracy, and until Manticore those pirates are mostly dead or jailed Manticore bears the weight of that sin. Yes, supporters mean anyone who provided materials, money, housing, food etc. to the pirates or the pirate organization.

Honestly, at this point I'm hoping for vampires to show up and kill all the bad guys. Or I suppose if we want to stick with the scifi theme some sort of nanoweapon that can move through the air, self-replicate, take over bodies and simulate brains to fake intelligence. Bonus points if it makes snarky remarks about not having free will. "Oh no, I'm not making a threat! I'm just a soulless program. I'm just warning you if you resist all these nice people will die. Feel free to murder them anytime."

GloriousRuse wrote:“Orbital industry represents centuries, maybe millennia, of development” becomes “our recovery estimates are excellent! The lines will be functional sometime next year!”

Really all this destruction represents an excellent investment opportunity for other people. Sure Manticore's wealthy folks would suffer, but who cares about them? If I was an amoral transstellar who wanted profit I would move money into Beowulf and use that to build stuff to take the now empty economic niches in Manticore. Now I could collect the rents that were previously going to Manticorians. This is hampered somewhat because Manticore lost a bunch of workers, but there will still be some.

P.S. Here is an Economist article giving a brief summary of disaster and economic effects. The tl;dr is that geological disasters (no chance to evac, like Oyster Bay) could result in persistent damage to the economy while weather disasters (people have time to evacuate, like an Honorcaine) can actually lead to a bounce in GDP if it forces people to modernize stuff while rebuilding. In other words Honor came in fixed the Solarian League Constitution and then helped them modernize their industry.

Much of the anti-Manticoran rants are nonsense. Honor always went out of her way to allow civilians to evacuate. And it seems that no one thought that going after orbital platforms was wrong. Note also that even with the Geneva Accords there were huge civilian bombing casualties and industrial damage. Intentional destruction, something tricky to prove, is forbidden.

Waving a gun at someone is not really a war crime. Come on, let's be grownups here. Yes, Gandhi had a more or less peaceful revolt but that was with the Brits. Had he tried that with the Japanese he and his followers would have been simply slaughtered.

As for rooting for Manticore, essentially they've been cast in the good-guy role. They were attacked by Haven (and their king assassinated by Haven even earlier). The Sollies went out of their way to push a war on them. Note that until UH ALL of the battles were around Manticoran planets.

And remember Burke: all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

tlb wrote:I do not believe that is correct in modern warfare. Honor gave sufficient time to evacuate, so civilian casualties were limited. But in a modern economy almost all industry can be considered war industry: certainly all mining and manufacturing facilities are.

Honor did all that you said, except commit a war crime; she was more considerate than any of the strategic bomber commands in WWII.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Its absolutely true in modern war.
War Crime from wikipedia.

Examples of war crimes include ... destroying civilian property,

More specifically
the Geneva Conventions for occupied areas, which Sol was.
Or the Hague

(g) To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

You can destroy civilian property or take civilian property when there is an actual need to contribute to the war effort, but NOT as some form of group punishment. Honor's stated purpose was to make the Solarians pay attention aka group punishment. Furthermore, Manticore had control of the facilities. The facilities were NOT contributing to the Solarian Leagues war effort, nor was the Solarian League capable of retaking said facilities. Plus, the system had effectively surrendered and the stations had been occupied.

I don't believe any WWII strategic bomber commands targeted territory they already had occupied. They bombed areas that were still under enemy control. No one went into every German factory, set demolition charges and then detonated them after taking control of an area.

Honor conducted a raid in force and did not "occupy" Solarian territory in the way the provisions you quote are meant. What she did clearly falls under the exception of "unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war".

But here we have another of those disagreements that sometimes occur: similar to the one about "treason". If the Solarians choose to consider the destruction a war crime, they are free to do so and there is nothing that can be done about it at this time - presumably there will be a karmic burden.

From Wikipedia on "military raid":

Raiding, also known as depredation, is a military tactic or operational warfare mission which has a specific purpose and is not normally intended to capture and hold a location but instead finish with the raiding force quickly retreating to a previous defended position prior to enemy forces being able to respond in a coordinated manner or formulate a counter-attack. A raiding group may consist of combatants specially trained in this tactic, such as commandos, or as a special mission assigned to any general troops. Raids are often a standard tactic in irregular warfare, employed by warriors, guerrilla fighters or other irregular military forces. Some raids are large, for example the Sullivan Expedition.

The purposes of a raid may include:
to demoralize, confuse or exhaust the enemy
to ransack, pillage or plunder
to destroy specific goods or installations of military or economic value
to free POWs
to capture enemy soldiers for interrogation
to kill or capture specific key persons
to gather intelligence.


The largest raids in history were the series undertaken during and following the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. Examples of lesser scale raids include those staged by the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Sich, the Grande Armée, and cavalry raids that took place during the American Civil War such as Morgan's Raid, and numerous examples of small group raids behind enemy lines that have taken place throughout all periods of history.

In the operational level of war, raids were the precursors in the development of the Operational Manoeuvre Groups in the Soviet Army as early as the 1930s.

During the Second World War, the British set up the Combined Operations Headquarters to organise harassing raids against the Germans in Europe. The first operation conducted by a "commando" formation, known as Operation Ambassador, took place in July 1940, but it was a small-scale operation that resulted in negligible success. The next major raid was Operation Claymore, which was launched in March 1941 against the Lofoten Islands. Throughout the war there were many other operations of varied size, ranging from small scale operations like those undertaken by Z Special Unit against the Japanese in the Pacific, such as Project Opossum, to Operation Chariot – a raid on Saint-Nazaire – and the Dieppe Raid, which was a large scale raid employing about 6,000 soldiers, over 200 ships and 74 squadrons of aircraft intended to take and hold Dieppe sufficiently to cause sufficient destruction to the port.

Paratroopers and glider-borne troops have been landed by aircraft on raids, including offensive counter-air missions such as those carried out by the Teishin Shudan and Giretsu Kuteitai commandos. In the modern era, the helicopter, allowing for both insertion and extraction, offers a superior method of raid transportation, although it comes at the cost of noise. During the Second World War, several air-landed raids were undertaken, including the German glider-borne raid on Fort Eben-Emal in Belgium in 1940, and the British Operation Colossus and Operation Biting, which were raids in Italy and France in 1941 and 1942.

The article should have included Sherman's march through the South after Atlanta as an example of a massive raid.

@ Weighed the Schrodinger Dice (Possible Cat)

While an interesting economist article, it unfortunately doesn’t reflect the author mandated scale of orbital infrastructure relative to the investments available. The bounce it reflects are typically in fairly minimal (relative to the overall investing party) repair efforts that cause forced modernization, not in fully catastrophic events - particularly in government driven industries. For example, the Chinese lost a major state oil refinery (older, with refurbs to accept increased light/sweet coming out of the ME) to an earth quake three years back. Given the straights of malacca, ensuring potential energy independence long enough to conclude a moderate length war with the US is a major Chinese internal strategic goal. Suffice to say that despite their best efforts and a massive gov/quasi-gov-corps investments, the loss of refining capacity has been a substantial hindrance, not a bounce, to their production goals.

Haiti might be another example - though they argue an evac would have helped - the simple answer is there is no one who can/will flush the cash on a sufficient scale to recover. They aren’t bouncing back modern; they are still substantially materially worse than they were eight years ago.

Perhaps a better example would be the Marshall plan - rebuilding West Germany was not a quick bounce to modernization investment opportunity; it was a literal decade plus of work with vast, Governmental level sums of money being thrown in with no expected material ROI, just a political one.

So, I don’t think either the Manties post OB or Sol post nemesis - given the author has stayed the orbital infrastructure lost literally represents generations of effort - is going to get a “rebuild better” bounce that we see in efficiently managed disasters that are small scale compared to the owning State.

And those are really the

@LDweschler

The manties may be sold as the good guys, supposedly acting in the best Burke sense. Now that they are invincible to the point where literally nothing done to or against them matters for more than melodrama, and everything they do is divinely perfect in all aspects, they have become the ur-Goliath regardless of in universe weight.

Some version of David and Goliath has been told in umpteen cultures for thousands of years. I don’t think I know of any where Goliath is the hero.

UNDERDOG

I once said that the SEM has to be careful not to fall prey to human nature. The human nature of being the underdog in a galaxy where everybody likes them and roots for them. With so many seeds of goodwill sown and harvested, they rise to the top of the mountain and plant their flag. As a result, they are no longer the underdog. Now there is a need to find a new underdog to root for, that thing called human nature. Underdog has now become a cat. Nobody likes the fat cat at the top.