Rebuilding Manticore's infrastructure

MyCall4Me wrote:I would HOPE that the Grantvills government enjoys a strong support in any rebuilding effort. Especially since any opposition party is probably still licking it's wounds after High Ridge and his supporters fell from grace

penny wrote:You and me both. But the thing is, we don't know what kind of horse-trading QEIII had to do to get her war funded. She might have promised concessions after the war is over in the form of cutbacks, social programs, etc. And the budget will already have to cover a lot of convoys of goods that will be sent to the new systems being added to the economy. Remember the convoy of goods that was initially sent to buy (ok entice) Grayson?

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually that would depend on whether or not the League ever rescinded the military arms and equipment embargo they passed during the first war. That did make it illegal to sell warships, military equipment, or military technology to Manticore, Haven, or anyone else involved in their war.

Jonathan_S wrote:Actually that would depend on whether or not the League ever rescinded the military arms and equipment embargo they passed during the first war. That did make it illegal to sell warships, military equipment, or military technology to Manticore, Haven, or anyone else involved in their war.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:True. That discussion may have fallen to the side. I would expect the embargo to have continued: after the end of the first war, High Ridge wouldn't have wanted to let Haven off the hook and he didn't think he needed Solarian hardware. After the war resumed and his government fell, Baron Grantville wouldn't have wanted to let Haven get Solarian hardware either. And the war with Haven was still going on when the conflict with the League started.

tlb wrote:I doubt that the embargo had lapsed and the League clearly felt that what Beowulf was doing was very much illegal, if not "treasonous".

tlb wrote:I doubt that the embargo had lapsed and the League clearly felt that what Beowulf was doing was very much illegal, if not "treasonous".

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Oh, the League in the form of the Mandarins sure did. They'd find any and every excuse to call Beowulf that and if possible justify intervention or their exclusion from voting or using their veto.

But that doesn't mean it was, at least in the eyes of the Directorate. I'd expect Beowulf to be scrupulous on this, so RFC may need to chime in and provide the legal reasoning why it was allowed.

tlb wrote:

tlb wrote:I doubt that the embargo had lapsed and the League clearly felt that what Beowulf was doing was very much illegal, if not "treasonous".

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Oh, the League in the form of the Mandarins sure did. They'd find any and every excuse to call Beowulf that and if possible justify intervention or their exclusion from voting or using their veto.

But that doesn't mean it was, at least in the eyes of the Directorate. I'd expect Beowulf to be scrupulous on this, so RFC may need to chime in and provide the legal reasoning why it was allowed.

That is fairly easy, the League basically did not have a united foreign policy, except for the Eridani Edict or during time of war (but technically time of war requires a declaration of war by the Assembly). The embargo was one of those rare things which Manticore forced due to its economic clout. But note that Beowulf did not start manufacturing for the Grand Alliance until after the Yawata Strike; but was it before or after the vote to leave the League? Since the League was already fighting a war, it would not surprise me to learn that Beowulf was illegally flouting the embargo.

runsforcelery wrote:Member systems of the Solarian League are under no requirement to share their tech with the SLN. They very often do, but they are not required to for two reasons.

One reason is that the assumption has always been that the SLN has the best and baddest weaponry in the galaxy, so of course the mere system defense forces of places like Beowulf have nothing to teach the Invincible Solarian League Navy™. Nor does the SLN always share its latest technology with the system defense forces of the League's member systems. It isn't required to, and if the Powers That Be take a dislike to you, you get frozen out of the hardware goodies. Sometimes this is actually based on genuine principle: your current system government is suspected of planning to be a bad actor, so we're not going to give you any bigger clubs until we are convinced you aren't.

Prior to Manticore's declaration of war, following Operation Raging Justice, there was no declared state of war, either. In fact, the League (in the person of the Mandarins) consistently denied that it was at war with the Grand Alliance at all, because a formal declaration would have required a vote in the Assembly and a single veto (i.e., a single voice of sanity) would have prevented it. Because Beowulf was not at war with Manticore (since nobody in the League was at war with Manticore, remember?), Beowulf retained its traditional legal autonomy where its military forces and manufacturing capacity were concerned. (It can build anything it wants for anyone who can pay for it, which includes munitions of war. As long as it's not doing so for a declared enemy of the League during a declared state of war.) Eventually, of course, Beowulf is going to leave the League (because the League, in the person of the Mandarins, has run so far off the rails), and everyone in the League knows it. Therefore, this exercise of well-established legal prerogatives suddenly becomes "treason" in the eyes of the Mandarins and their friends and allies.

The second reason the system defense forces are under no obligation to share their tech with the SLN, however, is something which is also at play here, in a legal/constitutional sense but may not have been made clear in the earlier books.

The original drafters of the Solarian League's Constitution specifically mandated that system defense forces were under the command of the systems which built and manned them and not under the command of the Solarian League Navy except in time of war when called to "national service" and signed off on by the system government. (That is, even in time of war, the system defense forces could choose to stay home and protect their sovereign territory rather than assisting the SLN in offensive operations or even the defense of other member systems.)

In case it isn't clear, the drafters of the League's Constitution were as paranoid about the possibility of a coercive central government as the American drafters of the Articles of Confederation. Some of that American paranoia carries over in the Articles replacement's Tenth Amendment (which any historian of the U.S. Constitution will tell you was written in late eighteenth/early nineteenth century terminology to preserve all but very limited powers in the hands of the states, not the federal government). The drafters of the Solarian Constitution (having seen how well that worked out in the US's case) crafted a system in which the central government was specifically barred from certain actions/powers rather than relying on a mere "all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states" language.

Now, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. At the moment in the League's life we are currently observing, it is a very bad thing, because the way in which the federal authority was deliberately emasculated to prevent it from threatening its member systems' autonomy precluded effective legislative control. This is what produced the bureaucratic system of the Mandarins. At least in the early days of the process, it was simply a matter of predominantly ethical and moral individuals finding ways to do the jobs they were charged to do when they'd been denied the means. Because those means were quasilegal and never submitted for approval by the Assembly, they were also doomed to become a source of abuse and personal aggrandizement.

Don't forget how long the League's been around, though, or the fact that for at least two or three hundred years it gave good governance. The fault is in the design of a system in which the federal legislature started out by resigning its powers into the hands of the League's bureaucratic organs. The drafters thought they could get away with this because they had set up a system in which the federal government would be so starved for funds that the damage it could do at any given moment would be limited. They failed to allow for the possibility that the feds, who really and genuinely needed funding for core services, would find a way to burrow through the no-funding wall and acquire a source of funding which the legislature had never been given the power to cut off.

In Beowulf's case, however, what this means is that unless Beowulf actually initiates combat against the Solarian League or provides the weapons used by someone initiating combat against the Solarian League, it is not guilty of treason under the League's own law. Needless to say, the Mandarins aren't real likely to go very far out of their way to explain this counterintuitive aspect of their own legal code to their citizens.

I am shocked, shocked, to discover that there is hypocrisy in Old Chicago!

Don't play that song for me
'Cause it brings back memories
Of days that I once knew
The days that I spent with you
Oh no, don't let 'em play it (oh no)
It fills my heart with pain (it hurts)
Please, stop it right away
'Cause I remember just what he said
He said: "darling..." (darlin' I, I love you)
And I know that he lied (oh, he lied)
You know that you lied (oh, he lied)
You know that you lied, lied, you lied (to me)
Hey mister, don't play it no more
Don't play it no more
I can't stand it
Don't play it no more (no more)
No more (no more), no more
Whoa-whoa (can't stand it)
I remember on our first date
He kissed me and he walked away
I was only seventeen
I'd never dream he'd be so mean
He told me, "darling..." (darling, I love you)
Baby, baby, you lied (darling, I need you)
You, you lied (darling, I love you)
You know that you lied (you lied)
Lied (you lied), you lied (to me)
Oh-oh-oh, darling (darling, I love you)
You know that you lied, yeah (darling, I need you)
You know I know you lied (darling, I love you)
Darling, you lied (you lied) you lied
(You lied) you lied, go on and hurt me
You lied (to me)
Oh, whoa-oh, you lied (don't play it no more)
Oh, baby don't play it no more (don't play it no more)
Don't do it, don't play it no more (for me), no more (for me)
I can't stand it no more (don't play it no more)
Oh hey, don't play it no more (don't play it no more)

penny wrote:Come on guys, please tell me we are not having this particular conversation. Again?!

First things first ...

runsforcelery wrote: -- snip --
In Beowulf's case, however, what this means is that unless Beowulf actually initiates combat against the Solarian League or provides the weapons used by someone initiating combat against the Solarian League, it is not guilty of treason under the League's own law. Needless to say, the Mandarins aren't real likely to go very far out of their way to explain this counterintuitive aspect of their own legal code to their citizens.

I am shocked, shocked, to discover that there is hypocrisy in Old Chicago!

All of that legal mumbo jumbo doesn't mean aratsass to someone who feels he has been wronged. Beowulf's actions are personal to the League. I bent over backwards to make that point. But you people are as easily force fed slop as the SL, with all of the rampant talk about the letter of the law in the face of a dying superpower.

penny wrote:Come on guys, please tell me we are not having this particular conversation. Again?!

First things first ...

runsforcelery wrote: -- snip --
In Beowulf's case, however, what this means is that unless Beowulf actually initiates combat against the Solarian League or provides the weapons used by someone initiating combat against the Solarian League, it is not guilty of treason under the League's own law. Needless to say, the Mandarins aren't real likely to go very far out of their way to explain this counterintuitive aspect of their own legal code to their citizens.

I am shocked, shocked, to discover that there is hypocrisy in Old Chicago!

All of that legal mumbo jumbo doesn't mean aratsass to someone who feels he has been wronged. Beowulf's actions are personal to the League. I bent over backwards to make that point. But you people are as easily force fed slop as the SL, with all of the rampant talk about the letter of the law in the face of a dying superpower.

tlb wrote:We are actually having a different conversation this time. That was whether Beowulf was obligated to share knowledge with the league and the author says no; this is whether Beowulf was legally barred from manufacturing weapons for the Grand Alliance and the answer probably is yes.

I agree that I am not interesting in you restating your Karma Chameleon arguments about the League's desire to come down on Beowulf like a load of bricks. First because that was the Mandarins and the old League Navy and second because Beowulf is now an integral part of the Grand Alliance, so an attack on one is an attack on all.

penny wrote:Come on guys, please tell me we are not having this particular conversation. Again?!

First things first ...

runsforcelery wrote: -- snip --
In Beowulf's case, however, what this means is that unless Beowulf actually initiates combat against the Solarian League or provides the weapons used by someone initiating combat against the Solarian League, it is not guilty of treason under the League's own law. Needless to say, the Mandarins aren't real likely to go very far out of their way to explain this counterintuitive aspect of their own legal code to their citizens.

I am shocked, shocked, to discover that there is hypocrisy in Old Chicago!

All of that legal mumbo jumbo doesn't mean aratsass to someone who feels he has been wronged. Beowulf's actions are personal to the League. I bent over backwards to make that point. But you people are as easily force fed slop as the SL, with all of the rampant talk about the letter of the law in the face of a dying superpower.

tlb wrote:We are actually having a different conversation this time. That was whether Beowulf was obligated to share knowledge with the league and the author says no; this is whether Beowulf was legally barred from manufacturing weapons for the Grand Alliance and the answer probably is yes.

I agree that I am not interesting in you restating your Karma Chameleon arguments about the League's desire to come down on Beowulf like a load of bricks. First because that was the Mandarins and the old League Navy and second because Beowulf is now an integral part of the Grand Alliance, so an attack on one is an attack on all.

penny wrote:No.

Only one of our concerns was whether Beowulf was under an obligation to share tech and knowledge with the League. Legally barred from manufacturing weapons? The author said yes! I highlighted that section.

Our previous discussion in that thread was all encompassing. It was about whether Beowulf was treasonous! And it sure as hell is reasonous! As their treason was seasonous.

Karma Chameleon? LOL