[Gray113]

Looking over The Reunion in the fiction pages there is also the famous example of Admiral Morian who is responsible for the mess that the GTVA are in now.

His service in Capella had left the man with a deep-set but largely unrecognized fear of the Shivans, and recent events had exacerbated this phobia.

It would seem that the GTVA do have knowledge of the effects of mental strain and it's effects on command staff decisions. This fact makes Steele's error in leaving Lopez in command all the worse.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'm still not sure how it can be interpreted as an "error". It gave Steele the leverage to requisition four more destroyers. Sounds like a victory to me.

[General Battuta]

Looking over The Reunion in the fiction pages there is also the famous example of Admiral Morian who is responsible for the mess that the GTVA are in now.

His service in Capella had left the man with a deep-set but largely unrecognized fear of the Shivans, and recent events had exacerbated this phobia.

It would seem that the GTVA do have knowledge of the effects of mental strain and it's effects on command staff decisions. This fact makes Steele's error in leaving Lopez in command all the worse.

Wait, what? You just quoted a passage indicating that a man had a deep-set psychological problem but was left in command and made a huge error, and then you argue that this indicates the GTVA is good at recognizing deep-set psychological problems before they cause huge errors? 

[Gray113]

No I said the GTVA have some knowledge of how psychological issues can affect decision making. This means that after the disaster at the Reunion they should be better prepared and those who are suspected of being under the effects of such issues such as Lopez should not be placed in positions where their judgement could be called into question until they have received proper counselling and treatment.
Steele was at fault for placing Lopez in the situation as he would have known that she would be under strain. It was his job to be aware of these things.

[General Battuta]

Is your argument that the flaw in Steele's command style is that he expects his human subordinates to perform as reliably and unquestionably as his technical systems?

[Gray113]

Yes and this means is that Lopez would not be fully held responsible for Neptune. Steele put her in that position knowing that she was emotionally compromised and as such he would have to answer for it.

Therefore Lopez would not be held culpable in her courtmarshal and would get of with an honorable discharge - if Steele let it get to a courtmarshal, he might want her to go quietly.

[General Battuta]

A flag officer is expected to be ready for duty and able to ascertain when she cannot perform that duty. Lopez would definitely be courtmartialed and definitely be punished, perhaps severely. Whether or not Steele should have understood her psychological position, her rank demands that she obey the orders of her superiors, and explicitly defying or implicitly 'reinterpreting' those orders is a failure that can't go without recrimination.

Historians might well put some of the blame on Steele - certainly the Fedayeen strategy was predicated on understanding Steele's blindness in this regard - but the GTVA military justice system probably won't. GTVA flag officers are expected to be able to make extraordinary and decisive sacrifices if orders demand.

[Drogoth]

RIP Carthage, you deserved better.

She will have better - going out in a blaze of glory furfilling her original role of protecting Earth from hostile invaders. I can't think of a better ending for this legendary ship

Hardly, she will have been taken over by the puppets of Vishnan overlords. Whole new kind of invaders. The Tevs may be the 'invaders' but they are at least true Terran, influenced by their own objectives and phobias rather then the objectives and phobias of distant an difficult to understand aliens.

Also - I called in the Toutatis on my first run cus I thought it would look cool. I also cheered when it got bum rushed and summarily destroyed.

[An4ximandros]

 The UED Solaris stand as an avatar of incomprehensible aliens (Vishnans) with manipulative motives within the UEF.

 I see what you did there.

[Pred the Penguin]

So... having strong personal feelings is a viable excuse to disobey direct orders? Damn, I gotta try that sometime! (kidding )

[QuakeIV]

I think the general point is its possible to court marshal people for not behaving like machines in the military.  They only used humans because they needed thinking machines to run the show.  Lopez failed as a thinking machine because she let her emotions screw up the execution of direct orders.  Therefore court marshal.

[CT27]

So if Lopez makes it home (through a POW exchange or something), probably:

-Court martial
-Dishonorable discharge
-Retires to some backwater place

[QuakeIV]

I would have to guess that that would be the case, yes.

[Klaustrophobia]

do you actually court martial returned prisoners?  or do you just discharge/retire them? 

[Flak]

I am not sure you can just send her to court martial though, sometimes circumstances left you no choice. I am sure that even Steele is more concerned that Calder managed to capture the Neptune station than losing the Carthage, since it gives the UEF a staging ground.

[CT27]

How often are the three UEF Admirals on their respective destroyers?

In other words, is there a chance that if/when a UEF destroyer goes down that a Fleet Admiral would still be alive?

[Flak]

Calder sounds like he is all over the place, while Byrne appears to be spending more time with the council than in his ship.

Oh, you may find it interesting that the Netreba (or rather the Eris) appears to have either the 'character shield', or a highly advanced ECM. In the beginning cutscene you can see the Marcus Glaive missed it at very close range. 

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I'm gonna have to fall on the side of a court martial and dishonorable discharge for Adm Lopez. She not only disobeyed a direct order from her superior, an order which contained absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever, she subsequently decided to feign communications failures. It's the second part that pushed it over the edge for me - it's a flat-out lie to her theater commander. That's a pretty big no-no.

Edit: assuming you didn't nuke the Carthage to kingdom come like I did. 

[Flak]

Great, if that was the case, I'd probably defect if I were her.

[Aesaar]

She didn't feign comms failure, her corvettes did when she presumably told them to leave, which they actually do if they still have their engines when she surrenders.