cthia wrote:I don't think Tsang doubted it remained under RMN control. But why wouldn't Tsang not expect the platforms to be huge behemoths as they would have to be had they been Solarian developed without the secret of the fission plant. Deploying such a state secret outside immediate war gives Beowulf a possibility to observe these things. It was clear the Manties weren't worried about that. And since Tsang would undoubtedly expect these things to be huge, and limited—requiring a series of them to increase bandwidth—then undoubtedly they'd be needed to be emplaced in the system at specific distances like a communications net working in tandem. And that would require some time. It is already established that the Manties had been there for a week or so, most likely distributing their extremely large phone booths.
Jonathan argued and I agree that Tsang could not have thought the platforms were big. That would say her tactical sections were far more incompetent than they actually were, and definitely more than she thought they were. I'll leave the arguments to his post.
What, Beowulf has no hyper capable vessels that can use its junction to warn its own founding? The RMN would seed some other system than its own with so many of these huge behemoths for over a week with their SDF swanning around to get a good look at them while they're being deployed?
First of all, there wasn't enough time to warn Sol and get orders back. That's a two-week round-trip.
Second, because Tsang hadn't seen it, there's no reason to believe BSDF sensors, which are ostensibly the same, could have. So if the BSDF hadn't known of the network, it couldn't have warned anyone about it, not even the local AO commander.
Not a chance Tsang is going to swallow any of that garbage. See above.
Logically, she would have, because it's an inescapable conclusion.
The problem is that Tsang may not have been thinking rationally and logically. In that case, she might choose to believe whatever she wished.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:My argument was two-fold:
1) the buoys transmitting the comms between Truman and Tsang need not have been deployed more than a few minutes before the conversation. Tsang couldn't have known of any long-range buoys between the terminus and the planets.
I'm not even sure I believe that, and I know at least a smidgeon more about the things than the Sols. They need a bit more deployment time to get in place than THAT don't they? And remember the Sols are completely oblivious to the tech. Along with the fact that space is large and there would be no way of knowing the exact position of any SL force when they entered the system and initiated contact. So the platforms had to be substantial to cover all possibilities. Again, the SLN would be thinking in terms of their own development of the platforms, minus the secret of the powerplant. The RMN usually deploy a redundant number of them so they can bounce the signal between them, preventing them from being localized. They may not have done that here, but still.
Ghost Rider platforms are nearly invisible and can serve as FTL relays. You don't need a Hermes buoy which is long-term and handles wide bandwidth. In a combat scenario, a GR is fine for communication and used more than once for this purpose. A GR also moves at 3500 gravities in full stealth. Truman was over 30 million but less than 65 million km from TF 11.6. In the worst case scenario, a GR can cover the entire distance from launch to rest relative in 45 minutes. Truman was told of the attack probably with the first ship that transited and possibly via FTL too. The D.B. warning Tsang was #7 on the list (20 minutes delay) and would also need to transmit via light-speed to Tsang.
But in any case, since the relays were being done by GR. I'm pretty sure they'd been on-station for far longer. Truman probably knew exactly which ship Tsang was on and could probably produce a far more complete list of items to repair on the hull than the SLN itself had.
An author conceived, author backed and author approved abortion as well. Whether an abusive husband may agree is another ball of wax. Beowulf has been accepting the act of browbeating neobarbs for centuries without their colors turning coat. Now, in the middle of war operations?
Then there's absolutely nothing to argue. If RFC says this is how the universe behaves, we accept or we read something else.
By Jove, I think something to that effect DID come from the mouths of "babes and neobarbs." Neither of which was on the Solarian guest list of government approved speakers. It should have come from Beowulf, who are NOT neobarbs and "WERE" a well trusted ally of the gorilla. As explained in the Karma thread.
And what do you think the Beowulf delegation was doing in the Assembly? They were making extremely loud calls to stop this ill-advised attack, pointing out that the evidence in the Crandall and Byng defeats was real.
Also note that the Beowulf navy and government were very deliberately kept out of officially having known that these things existed. Plausible deniability.
Legally, Beowulf KNEW that in the eyes of the gorilla that that is an INDISPUTABLE resounding YES.
And yet I dispute.
Beowulf did not officially know anything, so legally they had to do absolutely nothing. And we've seen enough from RFC that even if they had known something, so long as it wasn't a threat to League security, they were in no obligation to share anything. Further, considering Beowulf knew the Solarian services and bureaucracy were riddled with actual enemy spies, disclosing anything would be AGAINST League security.
What is required is her complete submission in the biblical sense. The biblical sense also requires the complete obedience to her husband, certainly as it would be digested by an arrogant and abusive kind of gorilla. If they are living in separate rooms, it requires the door between them to remain open, lest HE KICK IT DOWN. Until it's finalized, there IS NO SETTLEMENT. For many abusive husbands, there is no settlement even after the law has so ordered. As far as HE is concerned, and she's going to find that out the hard way soon enough. Anything about this doesn't gel with our own abusive gorilla's behavior?
And here's where I have to disagree with the analogy at all. It's just not at all analogous to the relationship that existed between Beowulf and the League.
If the relationship is to be seen as a marriage between a brutish, very strong and very arrogant husband, Beowulf would not be the submissive wife. Beowulf would be the lithe wife who kept in shape and knew enough kung-fu or krav-maga to keep the blows from landing, plus had a lawyer's degree with enough knowledge of PR to argue the case in the court of public opinion, should this brutish husband ever try to lay a finger on her. What's more, this husband is sufficiently disinterested in making that happen (because there are more interesting things to do, like waste money on gambling).
Beowulf never hid the fact that it wasn't submissive to League policies. They argued and argued in the Assembly. They retained the largest system defence force of any member system in the League, one which they actually used in suppressing genetic slavery. They continued to trade with non-League systems.
So no, I don't think anyone in the League bureaucracy thought that Beowulf was under the illusion that it owed the League anything more than what it had been saying in the Assembly for a millennium. They knew Beowulf to be fiercely independent and stuck to the original ideals of the League, which they had damn well founded. The League bureaucracy might think that Shell members, Verge neobarbs might fall over their knees to do the League's bidding, but they were definitely not under this impression when it came to Beowulf.
BTW, Beowulf is a male name. And he vanquished a monster.
So be it Beowulf. Continue to argue the finer points of the Constitution, if you must. But do it while you're opening that damn gate. Get it on record for any possible courts then do as you're told, because any trials are a moot point at this time when the gorilla is the judge and jury. Now, or in the future. Beowulf's duty is to the population of her own people. Putting their heads on a bullseye for Solarian revenge was senseless.
That's a moral question, similar to the question of whether it's better to have fewer freedoms in exchange for more security. Clearly the Beowulf planetary Board of Directors concluded that they were better off arguing the fine points of law and prompted the incident that would pave the way for their independence. They were betting on the other horse, the one that actually did win.
Sure, we can argue the moral rights the League had, but the League isn't on trial. Everyone knew their transgressions. What's new? Besides, Beowulf didn't have enough muscle to deliver her gripes like her masters did. "Do as I say, not as I do," yelled the gorilla as he beat his chest for centuries.
The League was very much on trial: the oldest kind, trial by combat. The were judged and sentenced.
In any case, let me repeat the argument that the D.B. was irrelevant. Tsang would have known the attack had commenced one way or another because of the disruption in traffic through the Junction. So the fates were sealed the moment she arrived in Beowulf with 100 SDs intent on transiting. The options available to Beowulf at that point were very limited and they'd get blamed for whatever happened anyway. If they'd let Tsang through, they'd be blamed for not warning Tsang that the forts were in place (regardless of comms showing Holmon-Sanders saying so). If they'd stopped Tsang, they'd be labelled traitors. So the way I see it, the Universe gave Beowulf lemons and Beowulf made lemonade with it: saved 6 million Solarian spacers' lives and got the final straw to break the camel's back on the way to independence.