Hutch wrote:Therefore Manticore would have no legal reason to attack them, thus putting the Manties in the wrong before the entire Known Space. Not to mention that the Andies would have looked askance at such behavior toward a one-time ally and confirmed neutral and begun to wonder if an Alliance with Manticore was really in their best interests--and given the conservatives in Grayson some major talking points.
And given the results of Haven's first strike, diverting enough ships and men to take and hold Erewhon would have streched Manticore's resources to the limit at a time when they needed everything on the line.
IMHO as always. YMMV.
kzt wrote:If you are supplying guns and/or tech to my enemies and are formally allied, then you are my enemy. Since making your ally protect you is in my interest, and blowing you out of the war is also in my interest, it will likely be a bad day when I get a couple of squadrons freed up. If you wanted to be neutral then you wouldn't be arming the people with whom I was formally at war with, now would you?
Occupy isn't needed, I roll in and blow up every ship, and orbital facility in the system and kill anyone who trys to stop me. You wanted to count on the peeps to protect you, well, good luck on that. This turns you from a net gain to a net loss to my enemies, who will either 'betray you' or be forced to divert a significant amount of combat power to support their ally. Either way, it's good for me and bad for you and your ally.
Zakharra wrote:
If Erewhon had been building and supplying weaponry, ships and supplies and soldiers/naval personnel as well as offering the RHN a place to base their fleets for operations against the SKM/SEM, then you would be correct. Sending in a fleet to flatten Erewhon would have been the proper response, but at the resumption of the war, Erewhon declared itself neutral to -both- parties even though they were allied to Haven atm, and Haven respected that declaration. Besides, Havan had already gotten most of the tech goodies Erewhon had gotten from the SKM/SEM, so by the time the war resumed, there was little Erewhon could offer the RH militarily or economically. There was little reason to attack the system.
Agree. By the time the war is resumed, the damage is done. Erewhon isn't going to be supplying any more tech to Haven, and the resulting political damage caused by an attack would have been much worse that taking the action they did - Jacking up the shipping rates through the junction, and diplomatically freezing them out of the alliance.
