Of Mike and Mesa

fallsfromtrees wrote:Actually, given the damage done to the upper levels of Mesa society by Houdini's weapons, its a little surprising that none of the members of the Board of Directors were not killed, perhaps even deliberately, since it should eventually occur to someone that if the Ballroom was behind the attacks, high ranking government officials would ave to be on their hit list.

True. But the other side of it was that if you were wanting to scapegoat the government, it wouldn't do to make victims of them. So it would depend on what you were trying to accomplish.

Don

SWM wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Actually, given the damage done to the upper levels of Mesa society by Houdini's weapons, its a little surprising that none of the members of the Board of Directors were not killed, perhaps even deliberately, since it should eventually occur to someone that if the Ballroom was behind the attacks, high ranking government officials would ave to be on their hit list.

But the attacks weren't (to all appearances) targeted at specific people. They appeared to be simply acts of terror rather than assassinations. It was not as devastating as you seem to think on the upper levels of Mesan society. Only a tiny fraction of upper society died, and it wasn't only targeted at upper society.

Which is contrary to the way the Ballroom has always acted in the past, and should be aignpost to investigators (although in fact they did do specific targeting of the one investigator who seemed to be getting a little too suspicious). And remember the lat weapon set off in the suburb of Haldane - was none of the Board in town getting a little on the side nookie?

fallsfromtrees wrote:Actually, given the damage done to the upper levels of Mesa society by Houdini's weapons, its a little surprising that none of the members of the Board of Directors were not killed, perhaps even deliberately, since it should eventually occur to someone that if the Ballroom was behind the attacks, high ranking government officials would ave to be on their hit list.

Alternatively, it will occur to someone that the Ballroom viewed the Board's competence as being competitive with the SLN leadership, and was therefore very carefully protecting the Board.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:But the attacks weren't (to all appearances) targeted at specific people. They appeared to be simply acts of terror rather than assassinations. It was not as devastating as you seem to think on the upper levels of Mesan society. Only a tiny fraction of upper society died, and it wasn't only targeted at upper society.

Which is contrary to the way the Ballroom has always acted in the past, and should be aignpost to investigators (although in fact they did do specific targeting of the one investigator who seemed to be getting a little too suspicious). And remember the lat weapon set off in the suburb of Haldane - was none of the Board in town getting a little on the side nookie?

That's not exactly true. The Ballroom is not a unified organization. It has on occasion engaged in terror acts. And these attacks bear some similarity to the nukes set off on Mesa not long before, which most people still attribute to the Ballroom.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Which is contrary to the way the Ballroom has always acted in the past, and should be aignpost to investigators (although in fact they did do specific targeting of the one investigator who seemed to be getting a little too suspicious). And remember the lat weapon set off in the suburb of Haldane - was none of the Board in town getting a little on the side nookie?

No, the ballroom is not a monolithic organization only carrying out James bond level surgical strikes. They earned their rep as terrorists fair and square.

kzt wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Which is contrary to the way the Ballroom has always acted in the past, and should be aignpost to investigators (although in fact they did do specific targeting of the one investigator who seemed to be getting a little too suspicious). And remember the lat weapon set off in the suburb of Haldane - was none of the Board in town getting a little on the side nookie?

No, the ballroom is not a monolithic organization only carrying out James bond level surgical strikes. They earned their rep as terrorists fair and square.

For the most part their operations were conducted against specific Manpower individuals and installations and slave abusers (e.g. people utilizing the pleasure slaves), not indiscriminate attacks against random populations. And there had never been the type of wholesale slaughter of populations displayed by Houdini. Eventually, this discrepancy is going to lead people to give credence to Anton and Victors description of the attacks being a way for the MAlign to try and hide, and it would seem that Houdini should have considered the possibility.

fallsfromtrees wrote:For the most part their operations were conducted against specific Manpower individuals and installations and slave abusers (e.g. people utilizing the pleasure slaves), not indiscriminate attacks against random populations. And there had never been the type of wholesale slaughter of populations displayed by Houdini. Eventually, this discrepancy is going to lead people to give credence to Anton and Victors description of the attacks being a way for the MAlign to try and hide, and it would seem that Houdini should have considered the possibility.

No, the few we have had described are like that. If I described 3 different IRA attacks that were clearly direct against military targets and carefully fail to discuss the Omagh Bombing, the Baltic Exchange Bombing, the Bishopsgate Bombing, the Manchester bombing, etc you would gain a different impression than reality. And yes, like the IRA, it's not an error to call them terrorists.

And, as David has stated, if a Manticoran intel officer hadn't both removed the tracking system from a nuke and then handed that nuke to person known to be unstable with violent impulses the Green Pines attack wouldn't have occurred.

Wasn't comment passed after Greenpines along the lines that the ballroom never do those types of random terror attacks. Comments that went unchallanged?

It doesn't have to be Ballroom. There's lots of alternatives. Ballroom wannabes, radicalized seccies with no formal affiliation (much like Anton and Victor's original cell on Mesa), splinter faction, and so on.

It's also good to remember that (1) accurate public assessment of what the Ballroom has done or will do is not universal, and especially unlikely to happen on Mesa (outside the onion, particularly), and (2) "the Ballroom" does not have sharp edges.

Green Pines, the park nuke at least, was a nuclear terrorist strike by a Ballroom sympathizer. Drawing a line between him and the Ballroom, especially when the analysts involved aren't as well-informed as the readers are, is not a feat we can expect of them.

There is no reason whatever to suppose that other operations by people with varying levels of association with the Ballroom have not been more or less indiscriminate. I seem to recall reports of bombs to kill a handful of slavers also killing quite a few people who happened to be nearby. Heck, for that matter, I'm sure someone at Green Pines was having a pleasant weekend excursion with the kids and peripherally involved, or more closely so, with the slave trade or keeping Mesa's huge slave population enslaved. So even it would fall into that "sloppy" category.