To End in Fire

Found by accident while searching for Governor.

Hardcover on Amazon

Publication date: Oct 5, 2021

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I don't understand how the pigheaded attitudes about a hidden entity can remain. After all, people are falling dead from simply being questioned. Even though in a certain Karma thread, I said Beowulf has a date with destiny. Destiny is a refurbished Gorilla.

On the outside of the problem it appears to be the SL itself. Has it not released it's findings to the League at large? Another thing that puzzles me is that the truth will actually be a lifeline to the SL. As it was to Haven and Manticore. "We were bamboozled" goes a long way as an excuse. So why aren't they forthcoming with what they do know.

At any rate, the blurb hints at possible trouble brewing over the horizon. The League is large and if it is itching for revenge, it is much too powerful an industrial giant to feel stepped on, pissed on, and betrayed.

Are there RMN pickets watching the hens to make sure they are not manufacturing weapons of mass destruction? I keep envisioning the day the SL 2.0 officially decides to send a message to the GA, starting with some hapless picket.

I summon you O WIZARD WEBER to come calling with snippets, sniplets, or simply a snip ...

"Sim sim solabim."

"Abracadabra."

cthia wrote:I don't understand how the pigheaded attitudes about a hidden entity can remain. After all, people are falling dead from simply being questioned. Even though in a certain Karma thread, I said Beowulf has a date with destiny. Destiny is a refurbished Gorilla.

On the outside of the problem it appears to be the SL itself. Has it not released it's findings to the League at large? Another thing that puzzles me is that the truth will actually be a lifeline to the SL. As it was to Haven and Manticore. "We were bamboozled" goes a long way as an excuse. So why aren't they forthcoming with what they do know.

At the conclusion of UH, the Ghost Hunters have indeed not released their findings. I don't think there's any doubt in their minds or those of FAdm. Kingsford or his staff that "The Other Guys" exist. They know people are falling dead from questioning. They know they didn't attack the Mycroft platforms in Beowulf and they know they certainly did not bomb the civilian stations. So they know someone else is present and trying to do false flag operations. That will probably lead them to conclude, eventually, that the Mesan Atrocity was not Second and Tenth Fleet's doing. But do note they are still calling them "The Other Guys" just in case identifying them with the Alignment was a scapegoat by the Alliance. And given that the Alignment was indeed found on Mesa and had nothing to do with any attacks, you can understand their reticence to accept the GA's arguments.

An the average Solarian doesn't know any of this. Even if the findings had been released, it's still possible to believe it is all fake news. People dying from questioning? That's dime a dozen! Has happened for at least 4000 years! They "know" that the Solarian regime is the best gift to Humanity, therefore anyone who opposes it must have a hidden agenda and must be part of "the bad guys."

At any rate, the blurb hints at possible trouble brewing over the horizon. The League is large and if it is itching for revenge, it is much too powerful an industrial giant to feel stepped on, pissed on, and betrayed.

Are there RMN pickets watching the hens to make sure they are not manufacturing weapons of mass destruction? I keep envisioning the day the SL 2.0 officially decides to send a message to the GA, starting with some hapless picket.

Those are good questions and I don't think they'll be addressed in this book. I expect this will focus on Mesa and the intelligence side of things, less on the military. I expect we'll need to wait for the next Saganami Island book for the military side of things, with Henke being the central character, while giving a lot of opportunity to some Commander and Captain-level characters for a co-author to develop.

But trying to answer them, what I'd do is continue the Harrington Plan into a Harrington Doctrine: continue to break up the League into smaller, bite-sized chunks you're the best friends with, but try to walk the fine line and keep the channels open with the League, exactly to prevent the revanchism you're talking about and Honor predicted.

I don't think the new League government will be open to a lot of discussions, after being imposed having to draft a new Constitution. Sure, whoever gets power in that will be indebted to the Alliance, but I think the popular opinion will force them to demonise the Alliance and assume an Anti-Manty political position. That means the Alliance will get cold shoulders from the New League.

The SLN is a different story. FAdm. Kingston, as mentioned above, knows for a fact that the Manties were completely right. He was actually part of the "coup" that brought the Mandarins down. The Ghost Hunters are also military people, from multiple branches, so the military as a whole will need to see eye to eye with the Alliance. And as I mentioned in other threads, I think Kingsford will work to rebuild the SLN's honour by working with the GF, by clearing their own trouble spots.

Unless, of course, he gets replaced. This has just occurred to me as I wrote "coup:" the new administration may want to actually send him to retirement and set up a new commander-in-chief who is more aligned with their political rhetoric. That would force the Ghost Hunters to going back to working under the covers, but wouldn't stop them.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That would force the Ghost Hunters to going back to working under the covers, but wouldn't stop them.

No, they just get arrested for treason. That would stop them.

Now you might ask, 'who would want to stop the ghost hunters'? But you already know the obvious suspects. I'm sure there are more possibilities.

cthia wrote:I don't understand how the pigheaded attitudes about a hidden entity can remain. After all, people are falling dead from simply being questioned. Even though in a certain Karma thread, I said Beowulf has a date with destiny. Destiny is a refurbished Gorilla.

On the outside of the problem it appears to be the SL itself. Has it not released it's findings to the League at large? Another thing that puzzles me is that the truth will actually be a lifeline to the SL. As it was to Haven and Manticore. "We were bamboozled" goes a long way as an excuse. So why aren't they forthcoming with what they do know.

I'm sure the SL has not released it's findings--they will not do so until they have rooted out as many of the Alignment moles as they can. They will want to keep secret the arrest & drop dead tactic as long as they can as once the Alignment realizes it's being exploited they'll patch the vulnerability as quickly as they can--if the agents don't just take what they can and flee first.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:I don't think the new League government will be open to a lot of discussions, after being imposed having to draft a new Constitution. Sure, whoever gets power in that will be indebted to the Alliance, but I think the popular opinion will force them to demonise the Alliance and assume an Anti-Manty political position. That means the Alliance will get cold shoulders from the New League.

The SLN is a different story. FAdm. Kingston, as mentioned above, knows for a fact that the Manties were completely right. He was actually part of the "coup" that brought the Mandarins down. The Ghost Hunters are also military people, from multiple branches, so the military as a whole will need to see eye to eye with the Alliance. And as I mentioned in other threads, I think Kingsford will work to rebuild the SLN's honour by working with the GF, by clearing their own trouble spots.

I'm not sure popular opinion will force them away from the GA. Once they have removed as many of the MA agents as possible Kingston could come forward with the complete details of what happened. If the new government backs that as an accurate report popular opinion might be swayed--they would see the GA had a beef with the corrupt government, not with the people.

And note that Kingston is right in only identifying them as "the other guys"--he has no evidence as to who they are, only that they exist. The only evidence that actually implicates the MA is a tightly held secret of the GA, everything else simply points to a puppet master, it doesn't identify them.

Loren Pechtel wrote:And note that Kingston is right in only identifying them as "the other guys"--he has no evidence as to who they are, only that they exist. The only evidence that actually implicates the MA is a tightly held secret of the GA, everything else simply points to a puppet master, it doesn't identify them.

The Ghost Hunters have circumstantial evidence linking to Mesa, namely that some of the handlers of agents they discovered were themselves meeting with people freshly arrived from Mesa. But they probably didn't trace the information pipe far enough to establish that in all cases, so the link is too tenuous for them right now.

Which is why someone will be sent to Mesa to investigate.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
The Ghost Hunters have circumstantial evidence linking to Mesa, namely that some of the handlers of agents they discovered were themselves meeting with people freshly arrived from Mesa. But they probably didn't trace the information pipe far enough to establish that in all cases, so the link is too tenuous for them right now.

Which is why someone will be sent to Mesa to investigate.

All of those 'deaths by natural causes' the moment that they were arrested sort of screams nanites or some sort of biotech.

In the Honorverse, that means Mesa or Beowulf.

Seeing how Beowulf is so fanatical about their code of ethics when it comes to biotech and nanites, while Mesa routinely flaunts the very same code, they have plenty of very strong suspicions but no way to prove it. It'll be interesting to see how much cooperation there is between the Solly and GA teams.

jtg452 wrote:All of those 'deaths by natural causes' the moment that they were arrested sort of screams nanites or some sort of biotech.

In the Honorverse, that means Mesa or Beowulf.

Seeing how Beowulf is so fanatical about their code of ethics when it comes to biotech and nanites, while Mesa routinely flaunts the very same code, they have plenty of very strong suspicions but no way to prove it. It'll be interesting to see how much cooperation there is between the Solly and GA teams.

Strong indicator, but still circumstantial. It's entirely possible that someone else has acquired the technology, either by independent development, industrial espionage, or simply duping the Mesans into making that for them.

So, yeah, I'll be very interested on who from the Ghost Hunters is sent to Mesa and how they interact with the Explosive Duo (Cachat & Zilwicki). I'll also be paying attention as to how the Solarian agent reacts to Plays with Fire (Harahap's treecat) and whether the secret that it was the treecats that managed to identify the moles in the GA governments and military does get revealed to them. I could see a treecat mission to Earth in the near future if it does.