cthia wrote:Bluesqueak wrote:Beowulf didn't commit treason when they alerted Manticore to a sneak attack by the League - because ordering Filareta's sneak attack was itself an act of treason against the League's Constitution.
It comes under the enemies, domestic clause.
Like my Driver's Ed teacher once taught us...
It doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong. Dead right or dead wrong, Beowulf is still dead. So drive for the other idiots on the highway as well. Beowulf should have handled it differently so as not to make the gorilla feel used, ratted out and set up.
If you are going to poke and prod the hornet's nest with a stick while you're running away, then accept your punishment.
If the SLN takes the point that dead right or dead wrong, Beowulf is to be dead, then they had damn well better make sure that 1) Beowulf, and all of its allies, both in and out of the Solarian League, are completely, totally, utterly dead and 2) they have the capability to accomplish that. Because if they don't, they will run head-on into a historically effective strategy commonly known as tit-for-tat.
Or to put it another way:
ON WAR by General Carl von Clausewitz wrote:We therefore repeat our proposition, that War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds; as one side dictates the law to the other, there arises a sort of reciprocal action, which logically must lead to an extreme.
Or:
Primacy of Culture over War in a Modern World? John Keegan's Critique Demands a Sophisticated Interpretation of Clausewitz by Andreas Herberg-Rothe wrote: War is an act of force and there is no logical limit to the application of that force, because violence is exceeding the limits itself, little by little.
Taken to logical ends, if the Solarian League Navy commits and Epsilon Eridani Edict violation against the Beowulf, they must expect retaliation in both greater degree and kind. And the Grand Alliance has the advantages of interior lines of communication inside the Solarian League, more qualitatively capable naval forces as well as more combat experienced naval forces--especially in missile combat, plus true multi-drive missiles. All of which the SLN does not have, and doesn't know it lacks.
It is the Solarian League Navy, if they attempt to attack Beowulf, will be poking the hornet's nest--and if Grand Alliance forces are present--they will not be using a stick, but their bare heads to do the poking with--and they haven't a proper appreciation of how truly outclassed they are. At best, only a very, very few SLN officers have the beginnings of a glimmer of a clue of how bad a situation they are in if they attempt hostilities.
The eventual foreseeable outcome, should the SLN go down the path of Epsilon Eridani Edict violations, will be a dozen or so MDMs hitting each and every one of the League planets (which have no capability of dodging) at relativistic velocities. That will put an end to the League and its Navy's capability to wage war, because the League will be, as your Driver's Ed instructor put it you, in the end, be dead.