The enemy in "extended space": SLN or MAlign

n7axw wrote:Hi fallsfromtrees,

Now there is an interesting thought. One would wonder if such individual would actually have a chance of saving himself by turning himself over to the sicbay of a Manty warship.
Talk about a security measure backfiring!

Don

And given thespeed at which it all had to be set up, it is a distinct possibility that one of the lower class minions didn't get his upgrade, and is therefore running around, with the controllers of Houdini thinking that everything had been covered.

Wasn't Zilwiki already aware of some “oddities” like a tourist/cruise ship that was destroyed that had bunches of suspicious people on board? I thought that there were several of the “oddities” that caused Zilwiki to run for help. So some evidence of what happened is there and other threads to yank on and follow I am sure will show up.

StealthSeeker wrote:Wasn't Zilwiki already aware of some “oddities” like a tourist/cruise ship that was destroyed that had bunches of suspicious people on board? I thought that there were several of the “oddities” that caused Zilwiki to run for help. So some evidence of what happened is there and other threads to yank on and follow I am sure will show up.

He had put together some statistical analysis that (to him) seemed to indicate that the rats were deserting the sinking ship, but he admitted that almost noone else would accept it, as the conclusion was very tentative. He had actually come to this conclusion before the sinking of the ship. That was the reason he ran for help, since it made more sense for him to go than Victor, as he was going to try an get assistance from the Duchess.
From CoG Chapter 40

He withdrew a data chip from the console, pushed the chair back and rose to his feet. “Almost literally rotten. The rats are deserting the sinking ship called Mesa. I’m now sure of it. I’ve run seven different correlations and they all come up with the same result. Well . . . allowing for values of ‘same result’ that are pretty damn generous.”
Yana knew the result he was talking about. One of the enjoyable things about working with Anton and Victor was that neither one of them was prone to security-for-its-own-sake. The mathematical techniques Anton had been using to crunch his data were beyond her grasp, but she knew what he’d been looking for.
“How damn generous?” she asked.
He grimaced. “Let’s put it this say. I can see a pattern—okay, through a glass darkly, I admit—but if I tried to present this to most analysts they’d tell me I was hallucinating. The statistical equivalent of spots in my eyes from staring at something too long. And if I tried to present the data in a court of law I’d be disbarred for incompetence. If I were a lawyer in the first place, which thank you very much I am not.”

I would supect that whomever showed up at the end of CoG also had (but we have not yet been told- it was right at the end- blocking forces dropped in relative to the Mesa/Visigoth wormhole and at a couple of points around the Mesa System hyper limit to keep ships from leaving the system. That would be right along with massivly getting the drop on the MSDF/MSN and preventing interuption or possible intervention comming through from Visigoth. Not the least on the mind of Mike if it is 10th Fleet would be stopping any slavers who were in-system from getting away with their cargos of slaves. Very easy to imagine that at least one non-military ship in system has Streak Drive and that it could be amoung the ships caught. Certainly anyone who does not respond as directed to what "should" be sent to all ships in system- surrender for the MSDF, don't run away for the civilian- should be to get run down if possible by some unit of the attacking force. At the very least it is probably a slaver trying not to get caught and even if it is some trader who thinks they can beat a warship to the hyper-limit, where they were headed (relative to the path they were on before the force showed up) should be checked to attempt to identify the ship for further inquiry

It is POSSIBLE that there is a Go-To-Hell plan by the Alignment that involves pre-possitioned nuclear devices "close" to the system operations & traffic control plus the relevent back-up records storage that will "sanitize" perhaps 99% of what records there are in official hands as well as a LOT of the people who have actually been involved in system control and operations. A lot of the shipping companies -at least what of them based on the station- would also go up in the blast along with records and people. It would have the advantage- for the Alignment- of massive disruption for the system, vanish a lot of information and generaly make a mess. That doesn't remove the information in private business files like what ship some cargo was scheduled to be on and what the destination was. Make finding the data very difficult and probably only from 3rd generation back-ups.

Makes perfect sense as a deep alternative for Houdini. Similar to the bomb under the Gama Center, if they are going to have to run or be over-run vaporize everything.

Brigade XO wrote:I would supect that whomever showed up at the end of CoG also had (but we have not yet been told- it was right at the end- blocking forces dropped in relative to the Mesa/Visigoth wormhole and at a couple of points around the Mesa System hyper limit to keep ships from leaving the system. That would be right along with massivly getting the drop on the MSDF/MSN and preventing interuption or possible intervention comming through from Visigoth. Not the least on the mind of Mike if it is 10th Fleet would be stopping any slavers who were in-system from getting away with their cargos of slaves. Very easy to imagine that at least one non-military ship in system has Streak Drive and that it could be amoung the ships caught. Certainly anyone who does not respond as directed to what "should" be sent to all ships in system- surrender for the MSDF, don't run away for the civilian- should be to get run down if possible by some unit of the attacking force. At the very least it is probably a slaver trying not to get caught and even if it is some trader who thinks they can beat a warship to the hyper-limit, where they were headed (relative to the path they were on before the force showed up) should be checked to attempt to identify the ship for further inquiry.

I was thinking that she doesn't have enough ships, but then I thought a couple of those "superdreadnaughts" might be LAC carriers.

As far as taking the wormhole terminus, of course. She'd do that as part of Lacoon II, as well as sealing off the Mesa-based transstellars.

Brigade XO wrote:It is POSSIBLE that there is a Go-To-Hell plan by the Alignment that involves pre-possitioned nuclear devices "close" to the system operations & traffic control plus the relevent back-up records storage that will "sanitize" perhaps 99% of what records there are in official hands as well as a LOT of the people who have actually been involved in system control and operations. A lot of the shipping companies -at least what of them based on the station- would also go up in the blast along with records and people. It would have the advantage- for the Alignment- of massive disruption for the system, vanish a lot of information and generally make a mess. That doesn't remove the information in private business files like what ship some cargo was scheduled to be on and what the destination was. Make finding the data very difficult and probably only from 3rd generation back-ups.

Makes perfect sense as a deep alternative for Houdini. Similar to the bomb under the Gama Center, if they are going to have to run or be over-run vaporize everything.

Well, maybe, but I doubt it. Sanitizing the records was always part of Houdini, and trying to make sure there was nothing to sanitize in the first place seems to be part of the MAlign operational plan all along.

One thing that I haven't seen covered is the part of the Alignment that's been left behind. It doesn't include the Onion, but it does include probably a million people that are firmly committed to the idea of genetic uplift, many of whom were actively working on the genetic uplift of Mesan society.

JohnRoth wrote:One thing that I haven't seen covered is the part of the Alignment that's been left behind. It doesn't include the Onion, but it does include probably a million people that are firmly committed to the idea of genetic uplift, many of whom were actively working on the genetic uplift of Mesan society.

CoG (Cauldron of Ghosts) wise, we the reader know more than the RMN/GA at this point; that the key players "the onion" were withdrawn, but they had to use a lot more "Manpower related conduits" that they'd planned to. That includes Zach McBryde and another scientist surviving and now not controlled by a GAUL. We don't read about any of the office complexes in the big cities burning to the ground for example, all of the faked attacks take out non-essential areas and infrastructure. We also know (or at least I think) that Audry O. is still on Mesa, along with alot of the transtellar folks in the offices of Technodyne, Axelrod, etc. that have NO idea the Onion even exists. BTW, Axelrod tried to seize the Manticoran Wormhole Junction once in the past (HoS), I'd be willing to bet that some of the records about that still exist... on Mesa, even with the "onion" withdrawn.

Mesa wise, the "formerly in charge proponents of totalitarian control and geneti slavery" are likely hunkered down and hiding from the secces and slaves. Keep in mind that a favored "Mesan security" interrogation practice was rape. (CoG) Watching this play out would be akin to the Allies going through Nazi Germany to separate out the German People from the High Command and their aider(s) and abetter(s) at the end of WWII, except that the rest of the population wants to kill you as well. As an formerly high up Mesa mucky-much, your only defensive option is to cooperate with the invaders: maybe you have enough info to get released, prison for a while, or at worst hung or firing squad vs .whatever death you'd get at the hands of 80% of the royally pissed of populace that outnumbers you at least several hundred to one.

SharkHunter wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:One thing that I haven't seen covered is the part of the Alignment that's been left behind. It doesn't include the Onion, but it does include probably a million people that are firmly committed to the idea of genetic uplift, many of whom were actively working on the genetic uplift of Mesan society.

CoG (Cauldron of Ghosts) wise, we the reader know more than the RMN/GA at this point; that the key players "the onion" were withdrawn, but they had to use a lot more "Manpower related conduits" that they'd planned to. That includes Zach McBryde and another scientist surviving and now not controlled by a GAUL. We don't read about any of the office complexes in the big cities burning to the ground for example, all of the faked attacks take out non-essential areas and infrastructure. We also know (or at least I think) that Audry O. is still on Mesa, along with alot of the transtellar folks in the offices of Technodyne, Axelrod, etc. that have NO idea the Onion even exists. BTW, Axelrod tried to seize the Manticoran Wormhole Junction once in the past (HoS), I'd be willing to bet that some of the records about that still exist... on Mesa, even with the "onion" withdrawn.

Mesa wise, the "formerly in charge proponents of totalitarian control and geneti slavery" are likely hunkered down and hiding from the secces and slaves. Keep in mind that a favored "Mesan security" interrogation practice was rape. (CoG) Watching this play out would be akin to the Allies going through Nazi Germany to separate out the German People from the High Command and their aider(s) and abetter(s) at the end of WWII, except that the rest of the population wants to kill you as well. As an formerly high up Mesa mucky-much, your only defensive option is to cooperate with the invaders: maybe you have enough info to get released, prison for a while, or at worst hung or firing squad vs .whatever death you'd get at the hands of 80% of the royally pissed of populace that outnumbers you at least several hundred to one.

I agree that there has to be so much left behind and undone by "Houdini" with the unexpected arrival of the yet unidentified fleet that has arrived. If I remember correctly, wasn't part of disappearing critical people was that the families they left behind would be eliminated so there would be no one left behind to miss those taken to Darius? Making some sort of sense out of the total disaster of a mess that is on Mesa is going to be one unbelievably difficult job, but still, in that mess there has got to be lots of clues left behind.

If I'm the RMN and I get a message from Admiral Henke like the one they got, I'm taking some action to find out what is going on in Mesa. Maybe I'd request Beowulf to send a ship to Visigoth to get the gossip from ships making the transit from Mesa. Or, maybe, after the vote/attack, the next terminus I take control of is the Visigoth one. But one way or another, I'm going to be actively making an effort to find out what is going on in Mesa. If Mesa has been taken, I , if I'm the GA, am going to be sending an incredible number of investigative resources to that planet. Oh, and I cant imagine that Beowulf wouldn't want to get in on that party.

OH!! Don't forget the treecats! They'll want to get in on that investigation also. Team those cats up with some really motivated investigative resources, who knows what can be found. And in a great big hurry too.

Maybe the treecats will become even a greater pivotal part to the Honovers than the ewoks were to Star Wars universe.

StealthSeeker wrote:Maybe the treecats will become even a greater pivotal part to the Honovers than the ewoks were to Star Wars universe.

You can't believe how much this possibility thrills me.