[Scotty]

If the GTVA sets up position over major Earth population centers and demands surrender on pain of destroying a city, then the onus is on the defender to either meet those demands for surrender, or suffer the consequences.  That was the GTVA plan going into Sol, before the events of AoA.  It's not a bluff, it's an ultimatum.

[leoben]

So you're saying they ARE going to kill millions of civilians for a military surrender? I'm not interested in abstract theoretical, generic scenarios. I'm interested in y'alls opinion about this specific case.

As I'm not convinced they're not bluffing...

[Luis Dias]

For a bluff to work it has to be convincing, for a bluff to be convincing, it has to ring true to your opponent. If it rings true to an opponent that isn't dumb or naive, but actually able to understand you, then it might have some truth to it. So at the very least, there's a real possibility that indeed if push comes to shove, some glassing could eventually occur.

It's a neat paradox right? The only way the bluff works, and thus no "glassing" occurs, is if it is sufficiently believable that they would do so. Ahhh, games of chicken. So typical of humans.

[Celendil]

So, if the bluff were called, are there multiple levels that the Tev's would be willing to go to?

For example, first strike is on the Sahara desert, a bit of uninhabited land, just to show they're not kidding about being willing to strike Earth? Then the next strike, if the first is ignored, is a small city, somewhere or other out of the way, with limited/minimal casualties?

Or do the Tev analysts think that would show too much weakness and invalidate the threat, and suggest going straight for somewhere big, like NYC or London?

[crizza]

I somehow doubt, that beams, fired from orbit, will do nothing but glass the surface...

[CT27]

If the UEF refused surrender and the GTVA didn't bombard Earth, wouldn't that lead to any future threats being taken a lot less seriously?

[FIZ]

Glassing cities?  I figured a more legit military target for starts, perhaps not even on Earth.  Think Pearl Harbor in WWII:  bombing LA would have killed more (not sure if logistically possible, that's a lot of ocean), but the idea was to cripple the Pacific Fleet.

I thought the strategy for the 14th was to hostage the Sol system while more assets from the GTVA gate jumped in?  Kinda a false-intentions beam-kabob approach.  Maybe I need to re-read the lore.

[Scotty]

I thought the strategy for the 14th was to hostage the Sol system while more assets from the GTVA gate jumped in?

This is functionally and operationally identical.

[SaltyWaffles]

I had always assumed that the threat would be less "or we'll glass your cities one by one" and more "or we'll start wrecking your ****" in more sophisticated terms. The implication that they could just start glassing cities is there, but the task force could just as easily (without losing credibility) turn and do catastrophic damage to essential military infrastructure. Like blowing up Artemis Station with beam cannons, or taking out a Solaris-class destroyer before it has a chance to get underway and properly arm itself. At which point, UEF admirals would be in an untenable situation anyway, especially with another Tev battlegroup following the 14th through the portal.