Masada: State of Affairs

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

tlb wrote:You present a good plan for changing the culture, however the Council of Elders, etc., rules on the ground; the "occupying" force is all in orbitals, if I remember correctly.

That's what the RMMC is for. They would have to land and conduct a search for those elders, because they wouldn't surrender when a foreign navy took the orbitals. They'd go to ground to avoid capture.

But in terms of culture change, that's sufficient. If they are cut off from their sources of revenue and the levers of government and Church, they can't continue the propaganda.

Jonathan_S wrote:Didn't a fair number of the top elders end up getting creatively killed by their "wives" as they were hiding from the Manticoran occupation?

No; now that I look I got things mixed up.

Flag in Exile wrote:"Compared to Graysons, Masadan women are downright scary. They're not even people. They're property . . . and ninety percent of them seem to accept that that's the way it's supposed to be." She shook her head. "Of the few who don't, half aren't sure the occupation's going to last. They're too terrified to do anything about the way they've been treated, but the ones who aren't afraid are almost worse. The homicide rate on Masada doubled in the first six months of the occupation, and something like two-thirds of the extra bodies were 'husbands'-if you can call the pigs that-who'd been murdered by their 'wives.' Some of them were rather artistic, too, like Elder Simonds' wives. The cops never did find all of his body parts."
"Good Lord," Honor murmured, and Mercedes nodded.
"It hasn't just been limited to women getting even with 'husbands,' either. The overwhelming majority of Masadans still believe in their so-called religion, but a lot of those who don't have some pretty nasty personal scores to pay off. A quarter of the church elders were murdered by their parishioners before General Marcel put the others into protective custody . . . and that only started the survivors howling about the 'oppression of the Faith'!

So while Elder Simons got himself real dead it's unclear if the "quarter of the church elders" include any of the rest of their Council of Elders.

cthia wrote:Not that I blame them, but how can these wives get away with murder? They should ask for asylum on Manticore.

cthia wrote:Not that I blame them, but how can these wives get away with murder? They should ask for asylum on Manticore.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:Not that I blame them, but how can these wives get away with murder? They should ask for asylum on Manticore.

Who says they did?

But they may not have been caught, if the evidence was too inconclusive. It could have been self-defence too, if the husband was about to beat or rape them. They may also have been able to plead temporary insanity, so even if caught and tried, they could still escape punishment.

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:Not that I blame them, but how can these wives get away with murder? They should ask for asylum on Manticore.

??? What makes you think that they did, will, or might get away with murder?

(And wouldn't asking for asylum on Manticore be getting away with murder?)

cthia wrote:The shocking law that you can't rape your own wife is slowly changing here on Earth today, but I would be hard pressed to believe that a Masadan man can be convicted of it. Let alone charged. So, killing your husband for lack of a crime is murder. Killing your husband even if he is about to kill you is probably going to get you convicted on Masada. If you are property, you have no rights.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:There may not have been a rape definition in the books at all, simply misuse of property (if it was another man's).

However, under the Manticore occupation, that all changes.

In a way, it irritated Bledsoe that he and his fellows had been forced, even indirectly, to share this supreme moment with unbelievers, yet there'd never been much choice about that. The Manticoran oppressors of Masada had blathered away about their desire to bring their victims the "blessings" of more advanced technology. Their beguiling blandishments had deceived many into abandoning the stony resistance with which the true Faithful confronted their conquerors, and in his more charitable moments, Bledsoe had to admit that one could hardly blame those weaker souls for falling by the wayside. The Harlot's servants were patient, and careful to troll their lures before the most vulnerable. New medical science for the elderly and ill. The abomination of their "prolong" treatments to extend lives centuries beyond the natural span God had decreed for His children. New schools to teach the wonders of their soul-destroying technology . . . and brainwash the next generation into acceptance of their evil, secularized universe.
They swore no one would be compelled to accept any of their "gifts," but they lied. Oh, they never marched anyone in at gun point and forced them to partake, but even the best men were weak without the rod of God's discipline. The Manticorans and their Grayson puppets knew the true way to encompass the final destruction of the Faithful lay not through force of arms, which would only create martyrs and make weak men strong in God's service, but through seduction. Through slow, gradual erosion. Good men, men who should be pillars of the Faith, could be tempted by the offer of medicines to heal a sick wife . . . or the promise of centuries of life for a child. But with every step any individual took along the path of sin, all of God's Faithful were weakened.
Bledsoe and his fellows knew that. Had it been possible, they would have spat in the faces of the infidels and rejected all their evil enticements. Yet it had not been possible. Indeed, even some among the staunchest of the Faithful had been forced by circumstance and duty to God to pretend to embrace the abomination.
The occupation of Masada had never been as all-pervasive as the occupiers no doubt wished it could have been. One simply could not land sufficient troops to garrison and patrol a planet of five or six billion people, which no doubt helped explain the occupiers' strategy of seduction. The orbital bases which gleamed in Masada's night skies, bristling with kinetic weapons and stuffed with battle-armored Marines who could be inserted directly from orbit to destroy any who came out in open opposition, were hardly the same thing as day-to-day contact with their subjugated victims. The fallen among the Faithful who willingly collaborated with their conquerors in the systematic desecration of God's ordained way of life were another matter. There were enough of them, and they knew their native world well enough, to establish an effective planet-wide police force, but they had been slow to emerge . . . at first, at least. By the time enough of them had sold their souls to the Harlot, the true core of the Faithful's strength had disappeared underground, where not even traitors could find it. Many of the Council of Elders' most critical records had been destroyed before the Manticorans could secure them, and men like Shackleton, who'd served the Council's intelligence services and the Office of the Inquisition well, had simply disappeared.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:The shocking law that you can't rape your own wife is slowly changing here on Earth today, but I would be hard pressed to believe that a Masadan man can be convicted of it. Let alone charged. So, killing your husband for lack of a crime is murder. Killing your husband even if he is about to kill you is probably going to get you convicted on Masada. If you are property, you have no rights.

I think it's a safe bet that the Masadan law said it wasn't. There may not have been a rape definition in the books at all, simply misuse of property (if it was another man's).

However, under the Manticore occupation, that all changes.

cthia wrote:Misuse of property? That is probably exactly what the crime is in the book.

If it changes under Manticoran occupation, then doesn't Manticore need to open certain doors to them as well? Like offering asylum to those who ask for it? They very well shouldn't be left out in the dark.