Brigade XO wrote:I don't recall any of the Mesa Board getting either pulled out or killed as part of the Houdini operation. If they weren't specificly targeted or removed (away from planet) then they are not that important to the Alignment excpept as tools to be used.
Not clear how the Alignment was managing the decisions of the Board except probably by feeding them information and ideas through varioius assistants and underlings or various "businee associates" providing them with helpfull or just background data that would steer them to come to various conclusions. On the other hand, these people are running their own businesses or government departments very much from their own or their preceived general self interest for the planet under the conditions they have been brought up in or are now dealing with. All of that has been shaped by the Alignment in one form or another including a major basis of the planitary and system economy: Medical science (under the Detweiler Code) and what is now known as Genetic Slavery.
They are pre-disposed to think in terms of protecting (and getting rich from) the whole existing system of Manpower and related industries. They are also dealing with a long existing problem with multiple layers, that being outright slaves, the Seccies and the attitudes and positions of people who both buy/use the slaves outside of the Mesa system and those who oppose it.
Right now they have suffered massive attacks on the population of Mesa, much of it directed at the elites but also spread across a very wide swath of the population. They have what the correctly see as an uprising of supressed populations (the Seccies, as aided by the Destructive Duo) which is spreading and obvioulsly about to break out into active fighting in a lot of places even if at the moment is mostly one step short of that anywhere except in Mendle.
They ARE trying to govern. They are also being hit in the face with several problems at the same time, the worst of which was the Seccie rising in Mendle on top of all those "terrorist" attacks and the -finally at this point- the Seccie poplulations comming to the conclusion that they HAVE to resist and fight at this point or probably end up being dead as the default position of most of the Mesa security forces not being able to do anything except hit at them for what has been happening.
Now there is an unknown (to at least we readers so far) fleet which has shown up. We don't know what-if any- communications has been had so far between the Board and the fleet. What we can be sure of is that nobody on the Board would seem to have any experience dealing with so many major problems of this nature at the same time and they are not reacting well. Even the ones who keep resorting the the "smash and kill them till the problem stops" tactic seem to be comming around to the idea that not only is that not working, they don't seem to be talking (that we have been shown) yet about what to do after the blood stops flowing in ocean sized lots.
Having the unidentified fleet effectivly dictate a solution to them in the short term is probably the way they are going to end up. That would including pulling back the Peaceforce to keep themselves alive since they are going to get the blame for whatever happens after demands are made on the Board.
If those SD sized ships are, in fact, Mike and 10th fleet, any attempt by the MSDF to engage are going to be short and decisive with the MSDF that engage (or look like they could engage) getting destroyed. Even if it is an IAN force, the results are going to be the same, just not on the same spectatulary outperforming leve as if it was Mike. The IAN, after all, is going to be sending at least Manticore lite tech and equiped ships with thier own various improvements and equipment. The IAN is also going to have briefed the command staff with at least what has been discovered about the forces from SLN and other "incidents" like the Maya defence of Torch (the tech anyway) and are so far above the SL and MSDF ranges to make it a moot point of how the engagement goes.
Recall that the IAN has been engaged along side RMN for years agains Haven and there are a lot of experienced and competent officers and men bringing those years of actual combat experience along with them to the action. Unless the Alignment has some Spyder Drive warships posted in and near the Mesa system, this will be a short and one-sided fight.
Just a nit plus a brief comment here. Genetic slavery is not the central point of the Detweiler code. Improvement of the human gene was. Genetic slavery was merelythe flamboyant subtrafuge that served as the cover for what the MAlign was really up to.
On to the comment...My guess is that when Mike's ships (presuming that was what they were) came over the hyper wall, the Mesa system government fell all over itself surrendering. In that event Mesa's navy wouldn't have been in a fight.
The Alignment wasn't into defending Mesa. It was getting the hell out of Dodge. That was what Houdini was all about.
Don
