Honorverse series, the future..?

crewdude48 wrote:And Honor said that if Raging Justice crossed into Manty space, they would consider themselves at war.

In fact, they already did consider it (emphasis mine):

Elizabeth III of Manticore wrote:If the Solarian League wants a war, the Solarian League will have one. If that is the choice the League makes, then the war which began at New Tuscany and continued at Spindle will resume right here.

So the best Filareta could have done was to abort his attack without crossing the hyper limit, thereby suspending the hostilities that had already begun. By crossing the limit after her explicit warning, he confirmed that a state of war existed, and threw away the SLN's last chance to de-escalate the situation without some formal acknowledgement by the League that it was at fault.

The anti-Beowulf vote in the Chamber of Stars doesn't seem to have been affected by the niggling detail of a lack of any formal declaration of war by either side.

TheMonster wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:And Honor said that if Raging Justice crossed into Manty space, they would consider themselves at war.

In fact, they already did consider it (emphasis mine):

Elizabeth III of Manticore wrote:If the Solarian League wants a war, the Solarian League will have one. If that is the choice the League makes, then the war which began at New Tuscany and continued at Spindle will resume right here.

So the best Filareta could have done was to abort his attack without crossing the hyper limit, thereby suspending the hostilities that had already begun. By crossing the limit after her explicit warning, he confirmed that a state of war existed, and threw away the SLN's last chance to de-escalate the situation without some formal acknowledgement by the League that it was at fault.

The anti-Beowulf vote in the Chamber of Stars doesn't seem to have been affected by the niggling detail of a lack of any formal declaration of war by either side.

Basically this. The war against the Solarian League began in New Tuscany when Byng slaughtered Chatterjee's destroyers. Whether or not Rajampet crossed the hyper limit wouldn't have changed that - it just would have kept that particular fleet from falling to a really cranky Grand Alliance.

Declarations do seem like niggling little details, but they do have a clarifying role and should be tended to. In the case of the League, the Mandrains are accustomed to acting outside of their constitutional framework because it apparently makes effective governance difficult if not impossible. A single member planet can veto a declaration, for example. In the case of Manticore, I'm sure that Elizabeth and Willy Alexander can get their declaration. It could be that RFC hasn't mentioned it because it is not important to his story line.

What bothers me much more than what happens in a fictional universe is how Washington skirts the need for a declaration of war which constitutionally vested in Congress. I know that presidents still try to rally Congress around them, but still the lack of a declaration of war when we send our uniformed personell off to fight leaves things murky and makes it harder to maintain public support for doing what is necessary as well as making it easier to become involved in wars of choice. In addition to that, it permits Congress to shirk its constitutionally mandated responsibility. Consider that our last declation of war was WW2.

I don't think that this descibes a good situation.

Don

It was established via a US Supreme Court decision years ago that a congressional motion to use force is a declaration of war for all practical purposes. Those presidents who don't bother to do this, like Clinton in Bosnia and Obama in Libya, can't use the various legal mechanisms that are only engaged by a declaration of war.

n7axw wrote:Declarations do seem like niggling little details, but they do have a clarifying role and should be tended to. In the case of the League, the Mandrains are accustomed to acting outside of their constitutional framework because it apparently makes effective governance difficult if not impossible. A single member planet can veto a declaration, for example. In the case of Manticore, I'm sure that Elizabeth and Willy Alexander can get their declaration. It could be that RFC hasn't mentioned it because it is not important to his story line.

What bothers me much more than what happens in a fictional universe is how Washington skirts the need for a declaration of war which constitutionally vested in Congress. I know that presidents still try to rally Congress around them, but still the lack of a declaration of war when we send our uniformed personell off to fight leaves things murky and makes it harder to maintain public support for doing what is necessary as well as making it easier to become involved in wars of choice. In addition to that, it permits Congress to shirk its constitutionally mandated responsibility. Consider that our last declation of war was WW2.

I don't think that this descibes a good situation.

Don

Unfortunately, at this point if Congress were on fire it could not pass the Pour Water on Congress Act, which hampers the President's ability to do... well, anything. In principle I agree with you, but principle also assumes that Congress isn't catastrophically broken and will actually do its job.

Given that the president doesn't seem to require that congress be in recess before making recess appointments, I don't see that as a real problem. However, like the SL, if the president doesn't bother to submit a declaration of war or use of force resolution to the legislature, it is highly unlikely that it will be passed. Which was the case with Libya.

We're slipping a little too far into real world politics.

Regarding Beowulf secession, I'm worried about the Solarian League's response. It seems to me that the Beowulfers will be in a deep hole if they can't fend them off before or after the plebiscite.

Let's assume that secession vote passes, and that the Mandrins' plans to slip a fleet into Beowulf's orbitals and replace the government (ie " One OFS # 6 special, with fries") with one that will repudiate the alliance were to succeed. The Terminus fleet isn't in time, Moriarty isn't enough.

What should the GA do? They can't accept the coup, there's no independent entity to mediate...would they have to invade Beowulf to root out the usurpers? Could there be enough of a Beowulfan government in exile to authorize that?

Have the SL gloves come so far off that they would explicitly hold Beowulf and her infrastructure hostage?

For that matter, why not yield Beowulf when the GA comes knocking, and destroy the infrastructure on the way out? They've got the propaganda points of how the imperialist GA invaded a core world when things didn't go their way. Wouldn't that be worth it to strategically harm the GA and send a clear message to any other potential secessionists?

Norm.bone wrote:Let's assume that secession vote passes, and that the Mandrins' plans to slip a fleet into Beowulf's orbitals and replace the government (ie " One OFS # 6 special, with fries") with one that will repudiate the alliance were to succeed. The Terminus fleet isn't in time, Moriarty isn't enough.

Your whole thought experiment falls apart at this stage though. There is no way that an SLN force can get into Beowulf orbit unopposed.

The E wrote:

Norm.bone wrote:Let's assume that secession vote passes, and that the Mandrins' plans to slip a fleet into Beowulf's orbitals and replace the government (ie " One OFS # 6 special, with fries") with one that will repudiate the alliance were to succeed. The Terminus fleet isn't in time, Moriarty isn't enough.

Your whole thought experiment falls apart at this stage though. There is no way that an SLN force can get into Beowulf orbit unopposed.

That was the plan the SL Navy had in the last mainline book AND that was Honor's worry about keeping the fleet at the terminus instead of at Beowolf. IF they get Mycroft up in time and with the possibility of microjumping to the vicinity of the planet it may be(is) beatable - but it is also a plan that is possible to succeed at, especially if Mycroft isn't fully up when the SL comes calling. They can't hold the planet long but they can have a hey day of publicity if Manticore tries to take a league founding state away from the SL by force.