Hi Valen123456,
We don't know the full depth of MAlign penetration, but some centuries of effort have paid off, and promoting the incompetent for generations has born its fruit.
We had this discussion regarding this hole in intel back at the bar several years ago.
Given the natural human interest in the military where are all the various types of military hobbyists [out of 11-13 trillion in the league alone, there would be at least 11-13 billion], many ex solarian military with family and friends still in the various services, with their magazines, vids, blogs etc; who would be fascinated by the first war; the most modern fought in memory with both sides having real "walls" for once, especially its 10 year length that hints that the RMN has some tech advantages besides managing to balance an industrial base outnumbered around 8 or 10-1 by Haven.
Various posters described all sorts of ways such 'hobbyists' could get all sorts of information from many sources, not just the pre-war parliamentary naval budget debates [or the pre 2nd war debates Honor and Hamish starred in] but the sources that Jaynes purportedly uses, the newsies, company brochures, port visits etc.
I thought the arguments were more than convincing, but RFC said nope, Nada; despite human nature, not this time.
It's his universe, we have to live with it.
L
Valen123456 wrote:drothgery wrote:
SNIPPED 4 BREVITY
To quote one Sollie character I cannot remember "How good does one Neo-Barb have to be to beat up on another batch of Neo-Barb's?" That was pretty much the extend of their thinking on that at that point. Manticore was a prominent and rather uppity blip on the far distant and unimportant horizon as far the the League was concerned. Even Haven's early expansions and unprovoked territory grabs where dismissed as a "hehehe! look at that little one over there, isn't its mindless little ambitious aggression cute" kind of thought.
Manticore and Haven just were not important to the Leagues movers and shakers, a fact that they are now (since Case Laocoon) learning to their cost, though they would never had admitted that at the time, and even now say it with clenched teeth. And the period during and after the First Havenite war was only really soured by the fact the Manticore had exercised its economic muscles and extradited the policy against tech transfers to Haven at the time. But that slap in the face was still not considered important since the Mandarins would much rather keep everything "business as usual", and trying to use some of the more underhanded methods normally used by OFS in the Protectorates would not have worked on a system like Manticore which was too strong and well connected to be absorbed quietly.
Manticore and others would also never have actually done anything to directly provoke the League if it were not for the Mesan Alignment starting to stir up the pot, with them as the ideal target for the Leagues key opponent. Until then as far as the League and its military were concerned they were free to ignore it. Their own little in-house power-games and political/financial maneuvers were more important to them at the time.
Now as we all know ... that's bitten/biting them very hard!
