Does Laccoon II play into the Mesan Alignment's master plan?

Dang those dastardly MA folks (and lack of clues from RFC) but something which occurred to me last night. We know that Mesa has moles both in Manticore and Haven, though not how deeply in either. We've got a Nesbitt in Haven at a high level that that's been corrupted, and Descroix was in Manticore.

No textev for this, but if the MA has ANY clue about Laccoon contingency plans, what better way to break the league into digestible chunks, and cut off the vast majority of Frontier Fleet from being able to concentrate forces against the MA or Renaissance Factor if they ever were convinced that they exist, than to let the RMN cut off a bunch of the wormholes?

Even if the SLN-FF starts taking wormholes back (doubtful in the short term), all they're doing is chewing up Manticoran and FF ships at no cost or danger of revelation to the MA.

That strikes me as a VERY economical use of force against the League, in Mesan terms.

"Let's you and he fight" is a effective economy of force trick.

I don't know whether they knew specifically about Lacoon I and II. But they could certainly deduce that Manticore had some kind of contingencies for dealing with the League. And even without specific contingency plans, the Alignment knew that Manticore was powerful enough to crack the League. That was what they had in mind (though they also wanted Manticore to be crushed in the process, which isn't going to happen).

Laocoon II has already effectively crippled the "nervous system" of the League as such, and both I and II dealt a lot of damage to its ability to move resources and the central government's ability to gather them.

It is not too much to say that, at this point, the Alignment has made the League provoke the SEM into turning the League into a sick, paralyzed, dazed wreck. The central government is isolated, starved for funds, militarily incapacitated, heading for a constitutional crisis, and repudiated by one of its central pillars, Beowulf.

So yeah, the Alignment's plan for the League is going right along wonderfully.

Its plans for Manticore and for Haven are well and truly off the rails now. Really, the existence of the Alignment, being discovered, has led to an alliance there when never having had existed would have left no such united enemy to exist in the first place. They've flown out the far end of failure there into a realm of anti-success.

The plan to remain hidden is blown to dustbunnies - all it extracted that way was people, and now the enemy (the Alignment was never supposed to have an enemy aware of it!) knows there is more to go find.

The plan for the Renaissance Factor is harder to score right now. I think the RF systems could do very well for themselves still in a fragmented League. I don't think an intact Grand Alliance is going to set the RF up to be the nucleus of a new and better League, but if they want to quietly opt out of The Plan and "settle" for being one of the largest, most successful successor states, and perhaps campaign over time for revisions of the Beowulf Biosciences Code - I think they could pull that off, almost easily.

If the Alignment really did want to adjust to the current situation in accordance with their original goals, that'd even be the smart move. But I don't think that they are capable of that adjustment.

SWM wrote:I don't know whether they knew specifically about Lacoon I and II. But they could certainly deduce that Manticore had some kind of contingencies for dealing with the League. And even without specific contingency plans, the Alignment knew that Manticore was powerful enough to crack the League. That was what they had in mind (though they also wanted Manticore to be crushed in the process, which isn't going to happen).

Exactly right. there is even some text, if my books were digital.

If you have your ebooks available, there was a Malign meeting --the one where Detweiler told Anisimovna to brief people (Jerome Sandusky?) about Verdant Vista, I think,--where she said outright that the MAliagn had never had much penetration in the RMN (or Haven military), and had lost most of what they did have in the fall of the HR and St. Just regimes. The Alignment seems to be somewhat like inSec or StateSec in that regard--more focused on the political side, I mean.

They probably [i]could/i] have had penetration; but why would they have bothered? Haven was buying Sollie tech (laserheads, sensor tech) and getting assistance from Technodyne. Manticore was a single-system hobbled by fractured politics. Until Haven was losing, and the Manti tech edge became totally obvious to their Technodyne buddies, they probably were not paying all that much attention to the Navy. Also, the security screen Roger had put up around Gram worked against more than just Haven.

Once they start looking at the changed Manti tech capabilities, and thinking about involving the League against Manticore, their own people could predict something like Lacoön as a most-likely/most-dangerous response. It plays into the Manti-domination of logistics, and finance; and the League is forced into crisis, even if they actually could win using their numbers.

Rob

JeffEngel wrote:snipped

The plan to remain hidden is blown to dustbunnies - all it extracted that way was people, and now the enemy (the Alignment was never supposed to have an enemy aware of it!) knows there is more to go find.

Snipped

If the Alignment really did want to adjust to the current situation in accordance with their original goals, that'd even be the smart move. But I don't think that they are capable of that adjustment.

So far, the only actual Malign operative found was Lajos, and he's dead. Their cover won't be blown until there is some more evidence found, with an unbreakable provenance. For now, their supporting data is too speculative.

I wonder about the Mesan attempts to modify intelligence; Honor was warned about that sort of thing leading to an excessively aggressive individual; do you think the Mesan Star lines may have pushed too far in the same direction?

Regards, Rob

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:snipped

The plan to remain hidden is blown to dustbunnies - all it extracted that way was people, and now the enemy (the Alignment was never supposed to have an enemy aware of it!) knows there is more to go find.

Snipped

If the Alignment really did want to adjust to the current situation in accordance with their original goals, that'd even be the smart move. But I don't think that they are capable of that adjustment.

So far, the only actual Malign operative found was Lajos, and he's dead. Their cover won't be blown until there is some more evidence found, with an unbreakable provenance. For now, their supporting data is too speculative.

I wonder about the Mesan attempts to modify intelligence; Honor was warned about that sort of thing leading to an excessively aggressive individual; do you think the Mesan Star lines may have pushed too far in the same direction?

Regards, Rob

The supporting data is speculative, granted, and enough so that it's not going to fly for the Solarian public. So the failure isn't total and absolute yet. But the data is still accurate and solid enough to send RMN fleets all over and to forge the Grand Alliance. We can mark that as bad enough and then some for the Alignment.

It's entirely possible that the Alignment's alpha lines are all or enough of them enough wrong in the head from the "intelligence" boosts to account for being set on a plan worthy of any handlebar-mustache-twirling cartoon villain in its scope and diabolic... ism. It could be a factor. But I do think that the tunnel-vision of The Plan, the small echo-chamber of the conspiracy, and sheer ideology is enough to account for it without ringing in a genetic predisposition to excess aggression or some other neuro-atypical problem.

Thinking aloud a bit. Given RFC's stated aversion to a pure white hats vs. black hats universe, and that the MA is a variant on the Aryan theme of Nazi Germany (we'll breed our super-beings and rule humanity!!) which will be defeated at great cost...

Here's my current musing. Laccoon II steps on the economic throat of a good chunk of the League Systems influenced by the wormhole junctions etc., but the vast majority have no beef with Manticore, and Manticore's goal is ultimately to not piss those systems and sectors into creating their own Bolthole(s) and passing the tech around and getting the SEM steamrollered later.

We know that the assembly is fairly corrupt, but then it's on Old Earth and is inside the echo chamber. Hmmm, sounds like the DC political scene, come to think of it...

We're even seeing the stirrings of some SL officers that not only have brains, but aren't exactly buying into the senior leadership(s) crap for brains approach to the current crisis... they might even be fairly moral individuals! AKA similar to the Legislaturalist progression back to the far more moral Republic of Haven. So does the League really have be dismembered into large chunks for that to happen, or just the OFS? and polit-ocracy that is dominated by corruption, from which apparently 70% of the federal money is coming from?

AKA no matter how much hand-wringing goes on in the Sol System, there's nothing that says the rest of the League can't stand together once they "throw the bums out", yes or no?

Armed Neo-Bob wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:snipped

The plan to remain hidden is blown to dustbunnies - all it extracted that way was people, and now the enemy (the Alignment was never supposed to have an enemy aware of it!) knows there is more to go find.

Snipped

If the Alignment really did want to adjust to the current situation in accordance with their original goals, that'd even be the smart move. But I don't think that they are capable of that adjustment.

So far, the only actual Malign operative found was Lajos, and he's dead. Their cover won't be blown until there is some more evidence found, with an unbreakable provenance. For now, their supporting data is too speculative.

I wonder about the Mesan attempts to modify intelligence; Honor was warned about that sort of thing leading to an excessively aggressive individual; do you think the Mesan Star lines may have pushed too far in the same direction?

Regards, Rob

I still think our pet wizards, Victor and Anton, are going to get a break in the aftermath of Houdini. Houdini was to complicated and hastily put together and executed for it to work out without a lot of lose ends...

Don

SharkHunter wrote:Thinking aloud a bit. Given RFC's stated aversion to a pure white hats vs. black hats universe, and that the MA is a variant on the Aryan theme of Nazi Germany (we'll breed our super-beings and rule humanity!!) which will be defeated at great cost...

Here's my current musing. Laccoon II steps on the economic throat of a good chunk of the League Systems influenced by the wormhole junctions etc., but the vast majority have no beef with Manticore, and Manticore's goal is ultimately to not piss those systems and sectors into creating their own Bolthole(s) and passing the tech around and getting the SEM steamrollered later.

We know that the assembly is fairly corrupt, but then it's on Old Earth and is inside the echo chamber. Hmmm, sounds like the DC political scene, come to think of it...

We're even seeing the stirrings of some SL officers that not only have brains, but aren't exactly buying into the senior leadership(s) crap for brains approach to the current crisis... they might even be fairly moral individuals! AKA similar to the Legislaturalist progression back to the far more moral Republic of Haven. So does the League really have be dismembered into large chunks for that to happen, or just the OFS? and polit-ocracy that is dominated by corruption, from which apparently 70% of the federal money is coming from?

AKA no matter how much hand-wringing goes on in the Sol System, there's nothing that says the rest of the League can't stand together once they "throw the bums out", yes or no?

If you scrap the League's upper bureaucracy, all or enough of the corruption, OFS, and its awful constitution, and try to recreate a state there with the same members of about the same size... it's remotely possible you would not have something that's going to become just as unwieldy, just as corruptible, and just as dangerously complacent as the unchallenged 800 pound gorilla of space.

But there is no way I would take that bet.

I do think that the less corrupt, more idealistic, and less blinded elements in the League may become pillars for the things - plural - that will follow. The core worlds form a sort of natural unit, or at least they have a shot at being one. Members of the Assembly like Hadley and the system governments behind them are either done with the League or getting there. The dream's dead. They lost. The monster has to die. But afterward, something good can be created - a genuine state, with a responsible, effective central government, something small enough that it does not have the lethargic dinosaur response time the League has.

And all those successor states, they'll still be neighbors. They will need friendly relations with one another. They may well recreate on that basis a lot of the institutions the League originally provided in the wake of the Final War, for trade, shared science, international policework, navigational safety. If the League isn't going to be able to work as a nation - it can't anymore, it never could, it just got away with it for so long because no one both could and had to call its bluff - then maybe some of the people and some of the institutions from it can re-form as a kind of United Nations organization.