Making your own rules

The Alignment specifically went out of their way to avoid an EE with the Manticore System, They didn't have to actually worry about that with Grayson since they were striking at stations and a base on & in a moon rather than risking a missile hitting a planet.

It was not from some desire not to kill Mantis or Graysons, that they very carefully did in the millions. The targeting at Manticore was specific to avoid having one of the projectiles miss a target and strike one of the three planets. Note the almost casual mention of the lack of concern for where any of the Stations debris would go--a significant amount of it guaranteed to drop into the gravity well of an inhabited planet- since that was "debris" not weapons aimed at or diverted into the planets.

As bad as the Oyster Bay strikes were, especialy for Manticore, a deliberate EE strike would have greatly changed what was going to happen next. At this point the SL leadership "knows" that SOMEBODY blew the crap out of the orbital infrastructure of the Manticore System though it is not clear how much they know about Grayson (I don't remember any Mandarin conversation on that). All the major playes know and it would be making knews across the space routes. BUT, if the Sharks had committed an EE, suddenly it is not just SOMEBODY who beat the crap out of the Manties, it is AN UNKNOWN SOMEBODY THAT IS USING KEWs ON PLANETS and their general populations.
That is somebody who can get in and get out of a planitary system undetected, has just made a major pair of attacks in an undeclared war against two Star Nations but has yet to move to consolidate the the results by doing something obvious such as taking control of the Manticore System and the Junction. These people who are GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY to bombard inhabited planets from space without even demanding surender.

Why did they do it? Where are they going to show up next? Why are they doing it?

A LOT of people would already be looking for whoever did an Oyster Bay with an EE built as part of it. A lot of nervous and scared Star Nations who see a calculated act of mass murder against planitary populations for no known reason. Even if very few of the Star Nations would be actually cooperating with others, they all have a great deal of reason to find out who would have done this (even the ones who dislike or hate Manticore) because they might be on the list and they need to keep the same thing from happening to them.

At the very least, it makes the Alignment -when they are discovered as having been the attackers- a pariah and blows ANY potential moral ground out from under them. Really difficult to be claiming to be the ones who are helping humanity reach it's highest potential when you are slaughtering helpless planitary populations just out-of-hand because their Star Nation doesn't like you being part of genetic slavery.

Though the fact that whoever did this could have killed >95% of the population of Manticore and Grayson with less effort than they put into not killing them has got to be kind of a disturbing element.

With respect to the Eridani Edict, I continue to await someone in the ISLN high command noticing that the major threat enforcing the Edict -- the ISLN will come and whomp you -- is not stunningly meaningful with respect to nations with which the SL is already at war.

This is perhaps even more the case if the last effort to whomp Manticore was most noteworthy for losing the ISLN fleet involved.

phillies wrote:With respect to the Eridani Edict, I continue to await someone in the ISLN high command noticing that the major threat enforcing the Edict -- the ISLN will come and whomp you -- is not stunningly meaningful with respect to nations with which the SL is already at war.

There's probably nothing that could cause the League to crumble faster than the League government (or the league bureaucracy) ordering the SLN to commit EE violations. Not to mention that said acts, if 'successful', would leave the BSDF or RMN or RHN or GSN or IAN without a home world and very, very pissed off.

drothgery wrote:There's probably nothing that could cause the League to crumble faster than the League government (or the league bureaucracy) ordering the SLN to commit EE violations.

Yeah, isn't that the case? Not that anyone would want to explode the league and has agents at high levels or anything....

Time for a parallel.

I recently saw an animated Superman film (stop sniggering!) where Superman encountered a group of "heroes" who didn't shy away from using lethal force but in fact embraced it.
After they tried to kill Superman, he demonstrated just why he held himself to such high standards by setting things up so that it looked like he was using the same techniques and tactics as the vigilantes. The leader of the group almost had a panic attack when he realised that by not following the rules himself, he was no longer protected from Superman by them. His shell-shocked response?

Manchester Black of the Elite: "Bugger me, he's playing it our way."

While I expect a planet or two to be wiped, the (highly publicised) response will inform everyone else that there are very good reasons not to cross certain lines, no matter how irritated you are. The message will be taken seriously, since even if the leader is willing to have his planet blown up from underneath him, there'll usually be a minion or two with working survival reflexes and a pistol.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the Alignment may not care about the Eridani Edict when planning what they intend to do to others, but they are undoubtably rather antsy about having their own planet exploded by an alliance of very irritated revenge-driven people.

kzt wrote:

drothgery wrote:There's probably nothing that could cause the League to crumble faster than the League government (or the league bureaucracy) ordering the SLN to commit EE violations.

Yeah, isn't that the case? Not that anyone would want to explode the league and has agents at high levels or anything....

Yes, but those people want there to be something to rule afterwards.

drothgery wrote:Yes, but those people want there to be something to rule afterwards.

Pshaw. The Leagues got over 1800 planets, nobody'd miss one or two. There'll be plenty of normals left to rule over.

[/MALign mode]

drothgery wrote:Yes, but those people want there to be something to rule afterwards.

You know what totalitarians say about eggs and omelets? Though it's always works out more like, to quote Panait Istrati on the USSR, "All right, I can see the broken eggs. Where's this omelette of yours?"

Plus why would the MAlignment want to have the people alive? They can just make a beta or theta line to inhabit the planets, its not like they want PSH running around. PSH from the Pure Strain Human from Gamma World.