A question about the destruction of Admiral Filareta

stewart wrote:IIRC they noted that Crandall was shot in the BACK of her head.

Methinks her suicide was assisted. The who is up to debate, but I suspect either (a) a staffer in the role of the aide to someone committing Hari Kiri , or (b) an unknown MA / GAUL agent who insured that "Dead Admirals tell no tails"

-- Stewart

More likely is C) An entire Admiral's Staff realized that she was irrational and her refusal to surrender was going to get them killed for no gain. Manticore didn't press the issue of who pulled the trigger because it was a joint decision to dispose of a threat to their survival.

It wouldn't have taken any sort of MAlign influence to get Adm Crandall a bullet to the head; Adm Crandall was more than capable of earning that end all by herself. There are several POVs from a staff member highlighting Adm Crandall's disconnect with reality.

Weird Harold wrote:

stewart wrote:IIRC they noted that Crandall was shot in the BACK of her head.

Methinks her suicide was assisted. The who is up to debate, but I suspect either (a) a staffer in the role of the aide to someone committing Hari Kiri , or (b) an unknown MA / GAUL agent who insured that "Dead Admirals tell no tails"

-- Stewart

More likely is C) An entire Admiral's Staff realized that she was irrational and her refusal to surrender was going to get them killed for no gain. Manticore didn't press the issue of who pulled the trigger because it was a joint decision to dispose of a threat to their survival.

It wouldn't have taken any sort of MAlign influence to get Adm Crandall a bullet to the head; Adm Crandall was more than capable of earning that end all by herself. There are several POVs from a staff member highlighting Adm Crandall's disconnect with reality.

Right. And I don't recall anyone on that flag bridge who did commit suicide or compel other armed people to kill them, which is universal among the nanotech assassins. It could still be someone who was placed to frag an officer who was about to get them all killed, but who was in fact ready for that because he or she was an Alignment (or just Manpower) agent.

So it could look like something innocent of grand conspiracies or nanotech at work, and may actually have been. In that case, the RMN wouldn't feel the need to investigate all that closely - what happens on an SLN flag deck prior to its surrender to them need not be of interest. Let the SLN wash its own dirty laundry if it wants.

JeffEngel"[quote="stewart wrote:IIRC they noted that Crandall was shot in the BACK of her head.

Methinks her suicide was assisted. The who is up to debate, but I suspect either (a) a staffer in the role of the aide to someone committing Hari Kiri , or (b) an unknown MA / GAUL agent who insured that "Dead Admirals tell no tails"

-- Stewart

]

Weird Harold wrote:More likely is C) An entire Admiral's Staff realized that she was irrational and her refusal to surrender was going to get them killed for no gain. Manticore didn't press the issue of who pulled the trigger because it was a joint decision to dispose of a threat to their survival.

It wouldn't have taken any sort of MAlign influence to get Adm Crandall a bullet to the head; Adm Crandall was more than capable of earning that end all by herself. There are several POVs from a staff member highlighting Adm Crandall's disconnect with reality.

Right. And I don't recall anyone on that flag bridge who did commit suicide or compel other armed people to kill them, which is universal among the nanotech assassins. It could still be someone who was placed to frag an officer who was about to get them all killed, but who was in fact ready for that because he or she was an Alignment (or just Manpower) agent.

So it could look like something innocent of grand conspiracies or nanotech at work, and may actually have been. In that case, the RMN wouldn't feel the need to investigate all that closely - what happens on an SLN flag deck prior to its surrender to them need not be of interest. Let the SLN wash its own dirty laundry if it wants.[/quote]
It's just that IIRC that there was a comment that the MAlign had made sure that Crandall wouldn't be alive to explain her actions, which implies either an assassin, or nanotech that forced her to shoot herself, as soon as she was alone, which explains why noone saw her do it.

Hi fallsfromtrees,

I agree with your comment here.

I still find myself wondering how much, if any, info that Manticore could have obtained had there been opportunity to examine Filereta's flagship before it was destroyed.

Don

fallsfromtrees wrote:It's just that IIRC that there was a comment that the MAlign had made sure that Crandall wouldn't be alive to explain her actions, which implies either an assassin, or nanotech that forced her to shoot herself, as soon as she was alone, which explains why noone saw her do it.

Given the POVs from her staff and the unanimity of the survivors from the flag bridge, I surmise that any precautions the MAlign might have arranged were un-needed and unused.

You keep ignoring the assertion that she was shot in the back of the head -- NOT a possibility if she committed suicide.

n7axw wrote:Hi fallsfromtrees,

I agree with your comment here.

I still find myself wondering how much, if any, info that Manticore could have obtained had there been opportunity to examine Filereta's flagship before it was destroyed.

Don

Given how thoroughly the bomb shredded the flag deck, I suspect that about all the info to be obtaine was that someone had set off a bomb on the flag deck. It is possible that the computers on the remainder of the ship would have shown that the "Gone to Hell" button had been pushed from the flag ops console, and if (and this is a big if) there was camera coverage of the flag deck that was stored elsewhere on the ship, that would have been extraordinarily interesting.

Weird Harold wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:It's just that IIRC that there was a comment that the MAlign had made sure that Crandall wouldn't be alive to explain her actions, which implies either an assassin, or nanotech that forced her to shoot herself, as soon as she was alone, which explains why noone saw her do it.

Given the POVs from her staff and the unanimity of the survivors from the flag bridge, I surmise that any precautions the MAlign might have arranged were un-needed and unused.

You keep ignoring the assertion that she was shot in the back of the head -- NOT a possibility if she committed suicide.

It is indeed possible to shoot yourself in the back of hte head - it is an unusual way to kill yourself, but it is not impossible. The MAlign could have done it that way to preclude an assumption of suicide.

fallsfromtrees wrote:It is indeed possible to shoot yourself in the back of hte head - it is an unusual way to kill yourself, but it is not impossible. The MAlign could have done it that way to preclude an assumption of suicide.

If the MAlign was responsible for Crandall's "suicide," RFC wasted all of the setup for her staff fragging her.

Weird Harold wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:It is indeed possible to shoot yourself in the back of hte head - it is an unusual way to kill yourself, but it is not impossible. The MAlign could have done it that way to preclude an assumption of suicide.

If the MAlign was responsible for Crandall's "suicide," RFC wasted all of the setup for her staff fragging her.

I didn't really see much evidence that there was a setup for fragging her, except possibly for the FF officer she coopted as a local expert. I consider it more a possibility of David foreshadowing the use of the nanotech to remove troublesome individuals.

Weird Harold wrote: More likely is C) An entire Admiral's Staff realized that she was irrational and her refusal to surrender was going to get them killed for no gain. Manticore didn't press the issue of who pulled the trigger because it was a joint decision to dispose of a threat to their survival.

It wouldn't have taken any sort of MAlign influence to get Adm Crandall a bullet to the head; Adm Crandall was more than capable of earning that end all by herself. There are several POVs from a staff member highlighting Adm Crandall's disconnect with reality.

Adm. Crandall gets a lot of stick for her idiocy, but in my opinion it's unjustified. From the text, she's arrogant, ignorant of Manty capabilities, and the arrogance leads her to underestimate the depth of her ignorance. And she has "the disposition of a grizzly bear with hemorrhoids trying to pass pinecones." Nevertheless, when members of her staff warn her of possible threats, she takes their counsel under consideration. When presented with evidence for the Manties' FTLcom, ultra-long-range missiles, etc. she accepts them as real.

Crandall's ill-served by her chief of staff, who's the real idiot. At one point, he himself suggests, "Maybe they think they can pull off some sort of 'ambush!'" Then -- moments later -- he ridicules the idea that what the Manties are "really trying to do is to convince us they're even weaker than they actually are". In other words, to lure the Sollies into some sort of ambush!

When last seen, Crandall is fully aware of her fleet's dire situation:

"I doubt even Manties would have fired missiles they can't control." Despite her own shock, despite her truculence and undeniable arrogance, Sandra Crandall's eyes were dark with a refusal to hide behind simple denial. "You may be right about the accuracy penalty, but if they can throw enough salvos this size, even crappy accuracy's going to rip our ass off."
Bautista's eyes went even wider at her harsh-voiced admission. He opened his mouth once more, as if to say something, but no words came, and he closed it again.
Crandall never even noticed.

So I don't see the "refusal to surrender was going to get them killed for no gain." I also don't see the point of fragging her on a broken ship which was unable to communicate anyway. O'Cleary took over, and surrendered less than two minutes after the first salvo struck, because neither Crandall's nor her 2nd in command's ships were operational.