GregD wrote:“We left Granger to keep an eye on the POWs until the Republic can pick them up, but there’s no way she can hold onto the yard if they turn up to collect them with a task group or two in their pocket. Which, if you’ll recall, is why I specifically told her to not even try. She’s got her finger on the trigger to slag the yards if she needs to, and she’s got the early warning to skip the system and make it back to New Dublin and avoid a fight.”
When I first read that, I read it as "the League", since the Federation wouldn't be "collecting" POWs "with a task group or two in their pocket".
The other option is that they're going to keep the POWs, and so "Federation" is correct.
But, in any event, "Republic" is wrong
I saw that to today and I think it meant "League", given the rest of the discussion coming afterwards: losing the yards. A Federation contingent wouldn't destroy the yards (they wouldn't be that stupid, not even to preserve the status quo) and Granger wouldn't be running from them.
I thought it could be either the name of a specific task group or maybe a another polity out there. Arranging for a neutral party to come and transfer the prisoners would be logical. But given that Hell's Hearth is the next biggest, is neutral and is still just four systems, it doesn't seem possible any third party would have the lift capacity necessary. Nor would they be a threat to Granger, either.
Given that, the only possibility is that it is the Terran League, not the Terran Republic of the later Starfire books.
