Post League Eridani

cthia wrote:Would Honor's assassin need to be in uniform? Was the attempt on her life in the restaurant by Maccabeus legal, since she was an enemy of Masada? Can three piece suits be considered uniforms if that's the prescribed attire?

Although she isn't a head of state, Steadholders may also enjoy some sort of interstellar protection from assassination.

To be technically legal by the laws of war, Honor's killer would have in the uniform of an enemy power. The attempt to kill Honor in a restaurant was by criminals hired by Pavel Young. The attempt to kill her (and the Protector) in the meal at the palace was illegal because it was performed by agents of Maccabeus disguised as palace guards.

Protocol I of the Geneval Conventions states that it is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favor, protect or impede military operations.

It is permitted to use a false flag or uniform leading up to an action, but those items must be discarded before fighting begins.

A three piece suit could be a uniform, but only if was not what civilians wore; there should be something that distinguished a person in uniform from everyone else.

PS. There are some very formal dress uniforms that could be 3 piece. The USAF had one for a few years after WWII that would be required wear at state or diplomatic dinners in Washington DC. It is described like this:

The Formal Evening Dress uniform was the popular civilian tailed coat with trousers, white vest and tie altered to US Air Force specifications. Ornamentation was added to the sleeve to indicate military character together with USAF gold buttons in place of the usual civilian buttons. The uniform was to be of black or blue-black commercial type evening dress cloth. It was nothing more than a conventional civilian tailed coat converted into a military garment.

PPS. It is not a given that even heads of state have any sort of interstellar protection from assassination. Certainly nothing protected Elizabeth's father from an engineered grav-skiing accident nor her from a stealth missile (except Honor's presence). It is an act of war (but in the second case the war was ongoing) and there are reasons why governments might disavow all knowledge of someone's activities.

runsforcelery wrote:Okay, I didn't mean to suggest that the Deneb Accords specifically prohibit a demand that surrendered ships not wipe their data cores. What I meant to point out is that the Deneb Accords themselves did not apply to the SLN in its confrontations with Michelle and with Honor because of the actions of the Solarian League as a political entity (and of the SLN as a military force).

Even under the Deneb Accords, the party allowing you to surrender is allowed to stipulate the terms of that surrender, which can include a demand that you not destroy sensitive data. If you strike your wedge, they are supposed to give you the opportunity to surrender, but the conditions of that surrender are theirs to stipulate.

It is traditionally assumed that you will destroy data, but that assumes that your opponent won't make its non-destruction a condition of permitting you to surrender. Note that you don't have to accept the terms; you can choose to continue to fight or you can choose to defy the terms and accept whatever penalty the victorious party wishes to inflict. In a war between peer competitors who have a modicum of respect for one another, it is pretty much assumed that a CO will go ahead and wipe his data, regardless of his opponent's demands, and face whatever penalty his captors decreed. And we have the example of some SLN captains who went ahead and wiped their computers and spent their time as POWs in less salubrious settings.

So is one side allowed to set impossible demands? What is preventing one party from dumping all the sensitive data and surrendering after they have already dumped the data. Or setting the self-destruct timer, then hitting the escape pods?

Is one side allowed to set demands before the surrender actually happens?

Loosely related question: Why didn't Sol just leave the Solarian League when Honor hypered in?

Is the New League actually going to give Manticore Eridani Edict protection in their new constitution? Why not just cut out the whole Grand Alliance and let nature happen?

Final Question: If we are talking about legality and piracy, wasn't Manticore's seizure of wormholes piracy whenever it involved third parties? Is Manticore a pirate nation now?

quite possibly a cat wrote:So is one side allowed to set impossible demands? What is preventing one party from dumping all the sensitive data and surrendering after they have already dumped the data. Or setting the self-destruct timer, then hitting the escape pods?

Is one side allowed to set demands before the surrender actually happens?

Loosely related question: Why didn't Sol just leave the Solarian League when Honor hypered in?

Is the New League actually going to give Manticore Eridani Edict protection in their new constitution? Why not just cut out the whole Grand Alliance and let nature happen?

Final Question: If we are talking about legality and piracy, wasn't Manticore's seizure of wormholes piracy whenever it involved third parties? Is Manticore a pirate nation now?

Taking the points in order.

These are not impossible demands and there is nothing that prevents erasing the computer cores anyway or blowing up the ship while surrendering. Although it has been mentioned that there might not be enough life pods to support the entire crew.

If you intend to make demands, then they have to be made before the surrender. If the enemy has erased the cores and offered to surrender, then it is too late to demand the computer cores remain intact.

Since Sol is the headquarters of the League and the SLN, the membership status is irrelevant. The destruction of the orbital infrastructure was retaliation for Case Buccaneer.

The status of the Eridani Edict in the New League is unknown.

The seizures of the wormhole junctions were acts of war, not piracy; since they were carried out by the uniformed armed forces of a nation at war, according to a strategic plan that conformed to the Deneb Accords. Note that the junctions are not in the territorial space of any star system.

tlb wrote:If you intend to make demands, then they have to be made before the surrender. If the enemy has erased the cores and offered to surrender, then it is too late to demand the computer cores remain intact.

So what is to prevent a demand of "All your fuel, missiles, drones, and computers must be intact for surrender!" at the start of battle?

Since Sol is the headquarters of the League and the SLN, the membership status is irrelevant.

Sol can simply ask they leave. The rules of war are given for what happens when enemies are in neutral territory. IIRC, one belligerent can ask the neutral party to order both sides out. At which point the Solarian League would be required to leave.

The destruction of the orbital infrastructure was retaliation for Case Buccaneer.

So a blatant war crime under the Geneva Conventions or any other legal system with even a tiny shred of decency? "Retaliation" is not a justification for destroying civilian property. Perhaps the Deneb Accords don't even have a shred of decency.

The seizures of the wormhole junctions were acts of war, not piracy; since they were carried out by the uniformed armed forces of a nation at war, according to a strategic plan that conformed to the Deneb Accords. Note that the junctions are not in the territorial space of any star system.

As was mentioned in the books, that's not how it works. Sandra Crandall's attack was an act of piracy despite her being in uniform. Attacks outside of a declared war are just piracy. They were no different than Case Buccaneer, except in scale.

Also junctions DO have a bubble of territory around their hyper-limit IIRC RFC correctly. As does anything else with a Hyperlimit.

tlb wrote:If you intend to make demands, then they have to be made before the surrender. If the enemy has erased the cores and offered to surrender, then it is too late to demand the computer cores remain intact.

quite possibly a cat wrote:So what is to prevent a demand of "All your fuel, missiles, drones, and computers must be intact for surrender!" at the start of battle?

There is nothing to prevent it, except good sense. There is little point in making a surrender demand until the situation warrants it.

There is a school of thought that the allies prolonged WWII by making it clear upfront that they would demand unconditional surrender.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:If you intend to make demands, then they have to be made before the surrender. If the enemy has erased the cores and offered to surrender, then it is too late to demand the computer cores remain intact.

quite possibly a cat wrote:So what is to prevent a demand of "All your fuel, missiles, drones, and computers must be intact for surrender!" at the start of battle?

There is nothing to prevent it, except good sense. There is little point in making a surrender demand until the situation warrants it.

The point of making the demand is so you can kill them if they don't surrender immediately. If they surrender immediately, you win your forces intact. If they fight, you get to slaughter them all.

If the Peeps had done that to Honor, Ransom would have been able to slaughter the pesky Manties and Honor never would have made her prison break!

tlb wrote:If you intend to make demands, then they have to be made before the surrender. If the enemy has erased the cores and offered to surrender, then it is too late to demand the computer cores remain intact.

quite possibly a cat wrote:So what is to prevent a demand of "All your fuel, missiles, drones, and computers must be intact for surrender!" at the start of battle?

tlb wrote:There is nothing to prevent it, except good sense. There is little point in making a surrender demand until the situation warrants it.

quite possibly a cat wrote:The point of making the demand is so you can kill them if they don't surrender immediately. If they surrender immediately, you win your forces intact. If they fight, you get to slaughter them all.

If the Peeps had done that to Honor, Ransom would have been able to slaughter the pesky Manties and Honor never would have made her prison break!

I doubt that is a correct interpretation of what is required by the Deneb Accords. Honor did not get to kill the crews of the ships that scrubbed their computers after her demand.

Ransom was not involved in Honor's capture or surrender.

If you've got the enemy in a corner after invading your home and you've got a cocked pump shotgun held right between his temples, you can demand any damn thing you please, up to and including he not flush anything. Albeit, any accidents caused from fear has nothing to do with the mess on your floor. There's plenty of room to bluff here. You can even convince him to help you break into his intact computers by giving you the codes, if you've got a good enuff bluff, and he's frightened enuff. Honor taught that in SAL 101.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

tlb wrote:The seizures of the wormhole junctions were acts of war, not piracy; since they were carried out by the uniformed armed forces of a nation at war, according to a strategic plan that conformed to the Deneb Accords. Note that the junctions are not in the territorial space of any star system.

As was mentioned in the books, that's not how it works. Sandra Crandall's attack was an act of piracy despite her being in uniform. Attacks outside of a declared war are just piracy. They were no different than Case Buccaneer, except in scale.

Also junctions DO have a bubble of territory around their hyper-limit IIRC RFC correctly. As does anything else with a Hyperlimit.

Lacoon One couldn't be considered piracy because they didn't seize the wormholes -- they "just" sent warships to ensure freedom of navigation; that Mancoran merchant ships were allowed to freely withdraw to Manticore as ordered.

Lacoon Two did seize control of termini -- for the purpose of denying the transit of League ships after the Crandall and her battle fleet detachment unilaterally initiated combat against Manticore. At that point there was a de-facto state of war and I don't think the League would get very far trying to convict captured RMN officers of piracy given that that was a very measured response to receiving a casus belli. At least initially they weren't even capturing
League ships - just refusing to let them use the wormholes (and engaging and driving off any SLN ship that attempted to lift their limited blockade).

I don't recall it being specifically stated but they were probably respecting the freedom of navigation of neutrally flagged shipping; making it a very targeted response to League aggression.



But ultimately the rules of war (and RFC has talked about this is the past) are backed by threat of retaliation. You avoid violating them because ultimately if you do your opponent has little reason to avoid violating them back. (Now sometimes there are powerful 3rd parties that can punish a combatant that's violating the rules or war; whether economically or by joining the war against them. But when there isn't, and in this case there isn't, the final restraint against violating them is that you'll be subjected to that violation in turn). The League engaged in wholesale and deliberate destruction of civilian industry, housing, and lives; regardless of their military application. Manticore responded with deliberate destruction of civilian industry (but not housing, nor industry in stations that were primarily housing). And everyone gets an pointed example of why it's a bad idea to be the first to break that rule of war.

cthia wrote:If you've got the enemy in a corner after invading your home and you've got a cocked pump shotgun held right between his temples, you can demand any damn thing you please, up to and including he not flush anything. Albeit, any accidents caused from fear has nothing to do with the mess on your floor. There's plenty of room to bluff here. You can even convince him to help you break into his intact computers by giving you the codes, if you've got a good enuff bluff, and he's frightened enuff. Honor taught that in SAL 101.

A variant of that technique is to have the shotgun inserted, somewhere.

A member of the Portland Police Bureau wounded his wife in an extremely brutal manner.

His colleges accepted his excuse that her merely forgot to unload his 12 gauge before playing around with it.

The PPB did not appreciate my sarcastic suggestion that they institute a program to distribute Kevlar condoms to their officers so that they can practice safe shotgun sex.