Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:Buccaneer was a formal well developed plan, since the RMN found it in the their data banks. I don’t think that was the attack on Hypthia etc. That was an improvised plan.

Of course why you would distribute something like Buccaneer to everyone makes little sense, since this exposes it to every CO and S3 in the entire FF. And it’s the kind of thing that would attract attention when leaked.

There was a case Buckaneer and plan Buckeneer - One was to use SLN ships to act as pirates to push Verge systems into OFS's arms, the other was to beat up helpless SL members or allies which seemed to be leaning towards Manticore/Beowulf and teach them a lesson by depriving them of orbital infrastructure.

Because the SLN seems to love giving giving evocative and meaningful names to their plans and operations.

'Operation Buccaneer' [UH] "was to warn anyone who might even think about signing up with the Manties, whether as ally or simple trading partner, that the decision would be…unwise. That the SLN would consider that anyone who sided with Manticore had just sided against the Solarian League, and that the consequences would be dire enough to discourage anyone else from following her example.
In fact, it was a terror campaign, directed against those unable to defend themselves."

'Case Buccaneer' [MoH] "which actually authorized Frontier Security to use Frontier Fleet units—suitably disguised, of course—as “pirates,” complete with vanished merchant ships whose crews were never seen again, to provoke crises in targeted Verge systems in order to justify OFS intervention “to preserve order and public safety.”"

And of course it was the latter one that Manticore found in the captures ships' databases. (We're also told of one other of those captured contingency plans - 'Case Fabius' [MoH] "which authorized Frontier Security commissioners to arrange Frontier Fleet “peacekeeping operations” which “accidentally” destroyed any locally owned orbital infrastructure within any protectorate star system whose local authorities proved unable to “maintain order”—meaning they’d been unable to induce the owners in question to sell to the transstellars OFS had decided would control their economies henceforth")
Nice folks

However I don't recall anything saying that Manticore had captured the plans for the terror campaign 'Operation Buccaneer'.

Jonathan_S wrote:However I don't recall anything saying that Manticore had captured the plans for the terror campaign 'Operation Buccaneer'.

The usual difference between an operation plan x and operation x is the order to execute x.

kzt wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:However I don't recall anything saying that Manticore had captured the plans for the terror campaign 'Operation Buccaneer'.

The usual difference between an operation plan x and operation x is the order to execute x.

Except this doesn't seem to be the case here.

Cases Buccaneer and Fabius appear to be OFS plans, though they involve SLN FF units; while Operation Buccanner doesn't appear to have anything to do with OFS.
I guess belonging to two different organizations makes a naming collision a bit less surprising. Even though SLN's FF units were aware of the OFS plans that doesn't mean that the (presumably BF) folks who came up with Operation Buccaneer knew or cared that OFS already used the name.


And actually, as described, Case Fabius actually seems closer to Operation Buccaneer than Case Buccaneer was. At least both Case Fabius and Operation Buccaneer focus on destruction of orbital infrastructure (though seemingly for different reasons and with different goals)

Case Buccaneer, playing pirate to pick off merchants and their crews, has seemingly nothing to do with the later plan to terrorize systems thinking of leaving the League by total destruction of orbital infrastructure.

We were seeing a multi-century plan to effectively take over the known area of human settlement moving into end-game. All wrapped up with puppeteering of thousands of companies and some system governments (along with uncounted numbers of individuals) into setting up the SL -with emphasis on Beowulf- to crash in a spectacular fall of death and destruction of civil war, and chaos.
The Alignment only cares about "legal" and "moral" were it keeps just far enough in the shadows to not be focused on as the perpetrator of any of this. Everything is misdirection. The vector of change is by corrupting anything they can get their influence into and cause it to rot from the inside out (Our early view in Manticore Ascendent Series of Republic of Haven vs Haven at OBS/Short Victorious War). Having apparently aided in the corruption of the SL (and Silesia) along with Haven, the preferred method is turn everybody involved into hated enemies of each other then have them destroy almost down to the crashing of ciivileages just so you can build it back in your own large system ruled by genetic super beings. How UPLIFTING....of them.

Now Manticore and the GA have seriously screwed up the nice impending crash and even given a chance that the SL 2.0 could fix many of it's problems.... no planetary level bloodletting or blasting them back to the stone-age if that is what it takes to make the Normals amenable to being broken into accepting the whole Alignment Philosophy - except they won't be told the actual plan of making them all cattle for the Alignment, just that they will be ....sort of uplifted but feed a version of the story that supposedly benefits the people being "saved" from the turmoil the Alignment has orchestrated.
Sorry, cynical day.
What difference does an EE violation or six matter if somebody else takes the blame....anybody else take the blame and you don'f care how many of them are your own "lower level" operatives.

Someone's going to have to point me to exactly what you all think I said, because it's certainly been a while. I don't think I said anything to the effect that the SLN couldn't commit an Eridani Edict violation as the enforcers of said Edict. But again, it's been a few years. I don't post much anymore because I changed careers before COVID and started working in the defense sector, which has some pretty strict rules about disclosure.

Duckk wrote:Someone's going to have to point me to exactly what you all think I said, because it's certainly been a while. I don't think I said anything to the effect that the SLN couldn't commit an Eridani Edict violation as the enforcers of said Edict. But again, it's been a few years. I don't post much anymore because I changed careers before COVID and started working in the defense sector, which has some pretty strict rules about disclosure.

I am sorry but I can't point you to what you said because I can't find it myself, and I just sifted through 62 MORE additional pages, searching with what I believe to be the keywords. [Murderous idiots. Eating crow. Bombing planets.]

But I have never had any mastery over the site's search facilities. It seems to want to throw out words because they are "too common." And using "idiot" as a keyword displays hundreds of pages from both text and posters alike.

At any rate, as I recall, you responded to me when I said the SL will not accept defeat and that they would simply start bombarding planets. You said something to the effect that "The SL is not a bunch of murderous idiots." I remember addressing your remark after the book came out, and I said something about eating crow. I even linked to it a couple of times over the years. I apologise for both not being able to find it and that my comments of being right on the money seem to have made this all about you. But it isn't about you, it is about the murderous SLN, and me being right. Again.

Of course, the one scene, alone, when (Gogunov?) gave orders and attempted to fire on escape pods ordered up crow for you.

You never responded to the eating crow post, so I assume you, well, were busy eating crow.

Actually I was hoping you could find the exchange.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:Buccaneer was a formal well developed plan, since the RMN found it in the their data banks. I don’t think that was the attack on Hypthia etc. That was an improvised plan.

Of course why you would distribute something like Buccaneer to everyone makes little sense, since this exposes it to every CO and S3 in the entire FF. And it’s the kind of thing that would attract attention when leaked.

There was a case Buckaneer and plan Buckeneer - One was to use SLN ships to act as pirates to push Verge systems into OFS's arms, the other was to beat up helpless SL members or allies which seemed to be leaning towards Manticore/Beowulf and teach them a lesson by depriving them of orbital infrastructure.

Jonathan_S wrote:Because the SLN seems to love giving giving evocative and meaningful names to their plans and operations.

'Operation Buccaneer' [UH] "was to warn anyone who might even think about signing up with the Manties, whether as ally or simple trading partner, that the decision would be…unwise. That the SLN would consider that anyone who sided with Manticore had just sided against the Solarian League, and that the consequences would be dire enough to discourage anyone else from following her example.
In fact, it was a terror campaign, directed against those unable to defend themselves."

'Case Buccaneer' [MoH] "which actually authorized Frontier Security to use Frontier Fleet units—suitably disguised, of course—as “pirates,” complete with vanished merchant ships whose crews were never seen again, to provoke crises in targeted Verge systems in order to justify OFS intervention “to preserve order and public safety.”"

And of course it was the latter one that Manticore found in the captures ships' databases. (We're also told of one other of those captured contingency plans - 'Case Fabius' [MoH] "which authorized Frontier Security commissioners to arrange Frontier Fleet “peacekeeping operations” which “accidentally” destroyed any locally owned orbital infrastructure within any protectorate star system whose local authorities proved unable to “maintain order”—meaning they’d been unable to induce the owners in question to sell to the transstellars OFS had decided would control their economies henceforth")
Nice folks

However I don't recall anything saying that Manticore had captured the plans for the terror campaign 'Operation Buccaneer'.

I don't know that we can say for sure what was found in the databases, can we? As I recall Honor alluded to references of... "and other things" found. No?

At any rate, Case Buccaneer was an appalling set of plans for any Navy to have because its interpretation could be so varied; as was the case with Gogunov who was clearly willing to violate the Edict. In fact, he was willing to fire on escape pods! That type of mindset was at the core of my sentiments all along. The SLN had a surplus of arrogant idiots who did not see a line that should not be crossed; idiots who did not think the metric of the galaxy applied to them. And knowing that was the case, why authorize anything like Case Buccaneer.

As a matter of fact, do consider that the terror campaign would have continued for God knows how long if Honor had not intervened. If Honor had not intervened, who knows WHAT level of insanity would have ensued. A Navy with officers who are willing to fire on escape pods still allows someone in the forum to see a line that wouldn't be crossed? Fascinating.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Because the SLN seems to love giving giving evocative and meaningful names to their plans and operations.

'Operation Buccaneer' [UH] "was to warn anyone who might even think about signing up with the Manties, whether as ally or simple trading partner, that the decision would be…unwise. That the SLN would consider that anyone who sided with Manticore had just sided against the Solarian League, and that the consequences would be dire enough to discourage anyone else from following her example.
In fact, it was a terror campaign, directed against those unable to defend themselves."

'Case Buccaneer' [MoH] "which actually authorized Frontier Security to use Frontier Fleet units—suitably disguised, of course—as “pirates,” complete with vanished merchant ships whose crews were never seen again, to provoke crises in targeted Verge systems in order to justify OFS intervention “to preserve order and public safety.”"

And of course it was the latter one that Manticore found in the captures ships' databases. (We're also told of one other of those captured contingency plans - 'Case Fabius' [MoH] "which authorized Frontier Security commissioners to arrange Frontier Fleet “peacekeeping operations” which “accidentally” destroyed any locally owned orbital infrastructure within any protectorate star system whose local authorities proved unable to “maintain order”—meaning they’d been unable to induce the owners in question to sell to the transstellars OFS had decided would control their economies henceforth")
Nice folks

However I don't recall anything saying that Manticore had captured the plans for the terror campaign 'Operation Buccaneer'.

I don't know that we can say for sure what was found in the databases, can we? As I recall Honor alluded to references of... "and other things" found. No?

At any rate, Case Buccaneer was an appalling set of plans for any Navy to have because its interpretation could be so varied; as was the case with Gogunov who was clearly willing to violate the Edict. In fact, he was willing to fire on escape pods! That type of mindset was at the core of my sentiments all along. The SLN had a surplus of arrogant idiots who did not see a line that should not be crossed; idiots who did not think the metric of the galaxy applied to them. And knowing that was the case, why authorize anything like Case Buccaneer.

As a matter of fact, do consider that the terror campaign would have continued for God knows how long if Honor had not intervened. If Honor had not intervened, who knows WHAT level of insanity would have ensued. A Navy with officers who are willing to fire on escape pods still allows someone in the forum to see a line that wouldn't be crossed? Fascinating.

It's true that we don't know for sure what other plans were in those captured databases.

However I personally feel that if there'd been one for terror attacks on League members I can't imagine Michelle Henke's thoughts wouldn't have turned to that as an example of one of the "juicer details" that the League would be unhappy about Star Empire publicizing. Cases Fabius and Buccaneer would be small potatoes next to that bombshell.

Minor correction though. Gogunov was following Operation Buccaneer -- it was that terror campaign that had loose enough instructions that they could be so widely interpreted.

Though I doubt there was anything in those orders that hinted one way or the other about treatment of escape pods or POWs. Why would there be? That'd covered by standing orders for the SLN to follow the Deneb Accords. (The Accords that Gogunov specifically said he wasn't going to follow in order to teach "these butchers actions have consequences" -- what can I say; he was more interested in bloody revenge than acting in a profession manner and following the rules or war; and as such was utterly unsuited for command).

The SLN planners were picking terror targets for Operation Buccaneer that weren't supposed to have defenses, and weren't expecting to run into Manties -- so why would they have thought to add any contingencies about dealing with possible Manty survivors?
No, I'm pretty sure the Deneb Accord violation was all Gogunov's idea. (That said, despite presumably not having any cover from his orders, he clearly wasn't worried about what his superiors or the SLN military justice system might think about that atrocity. He might have be wrong about that; but he clearly seems to have assumed that they wouldn't much care)

cthia wrote:At any rate, as I recall, you responded to me when I said the SL will not accept defeat and that they would simply start bombarding planets. You said something to the effect that "The SL is not a bunch of murderous idiots." I remember addressing your remark after the book came out, and I said something about eating crow. I even linked to it a couple of times over the years. I apologise for both not being able to find it and that my comments of being right on the money seem to have made this all about you. But it isn't about you, it is about the murderous SLN, and me being right.

That might well be where you and he differ. If he was talking about bombarding planets to extinction (which you have mentioned various times, most recently by the Malign), then he was being consistent with other statements of his that are still available in the Forum. Turning an inhabited planet into a cinder is orders of magnitude worse than the various EE or Deneb Accord violations that you say you were correct about. In that case you are taking credit for something that he never said could not happen.

tlb wrote:

cthia wrote:At any rate, as I recall, you responded to me when I said the SL will not accept defeat and that they would simply start bombarding planets. You said something to the effect that "The SL is not a bunch of murderous idiots." I remember addressing your remark after the book came out, and I said something about eating crow. I even linked to it a couple of times over the years. I apologise for both not being able to find it and that my comments of being right on the money seem to have made this all about you. But it isn't about you, it is about the murderous SLN, and me being right.

That might well be where you and he differ. If he was talking about bombarding planets to extinction (which you have mentioned various times, most recently by the Malign), then he was being consistent with other statements of his that are still available in the Forum. Turning an inhabited planet into a cinder is orders of magnitude worse than the various EE or Deneb Accord violations that you say you were correct about. In that case you are taking credit for something that he never said could not happen.

There could have been a misunderstanding, although I don't think so. But there could have been; and since I can't produce the evidence, I have to allow for it.

I would also like to find the post to read my own statements. Perhaps my language was a bit too strong. Bombarding planets in the original sense of the Edict (Masadan style) is not what I meant. At the time I was thinking the SLN has thousands of ships and that there is no way the GA could have protected even their own responsibilities. So, I didn't mean to imply that the SLN would launch missiles from afar which would impact a planet at a significant fraction of C. They would enter orbit and bombard; at least that is what I was thinking. Even at Hypatia the SLN was heading towards the planet. But even using kews, illegally, is a violation of the Edict. As a matter of fact, that is the strategy they adopted; attacking systems they thought were not defended. I was right again. I hate being right.

And yes, I have stated that THE MA WOULD NOT HESITATE to bombard planets. I stand by that. Either it is in your DNA or it isn't ...

Brigade XO wrote:What difference does an EE violation or six matter if somebody else takes the blame....anybody else take the blame and you don'f care how many of them are your own "lower level" operatives.

It doesn't matter at all if that kind of atrocious behavior is in your DNA. If it isn't, just the thought of it would sicken you.

I harbor no illusions that the MA would hesitate or lose any sleep over an intentional EEV; IF it will win a war. Or in their case, simply out of spite because defeat is imminent.