Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: CT27 on May 31, 2015, 02:41:03 pm
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I was thinking about one of the underlying notions of Blue Planet.
The question I had was: if the events of AoA hadn't happened, would any conflict between the GTVA and UEF really been as short as people seem to think? It's been a while since I read the Blue Planet fiction, but IIRC the original goal of the 14th Battlegroup was to pretend to want peace and then park itself over Earth and demand surrender/integration at gunpoint (and since the UEF fleet wouldn't be in a militarized posture against the GTVA it's been argued they would surrender quickly and any 'war' would be over in minutes).
However, even without AoA happening, would the 14th's people really have been willing to do this? Would they really obey orders to basically nuke parts of Earth, especially after the common soldier has been told they're trying for peace? If the UEF didn't surrender immediately, they would have to otherwise it would just be a bluff and they wouldn't be taken seriously any more. . In other words, what would happen if the UEF at this point said "No, we don't surrender"?
Basically, even if without the AoA experience, would the 14th really have been willing to strike Earth (especially under false pretenses)?
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The crews of the ships follow orders from their captains and officers. Officers enforce their captain's authority, and captains follow the orders of the commander of the fleet. The orders to begin occupation/subjugation of Sol were not widely known; if they had been, much of the crews probably would have been highly uneasy with the mission to begin with, rather than being excited and hopeful to see the Earth again. I don't think even the ship captains were privy to the orders - I would think only Admiral Bei and perhaps his immediate staff were aware of the true orders.
As it were, the effects of Age of Aquarius probably had a highly personal effect on the commander of the 14th Battle Group - Admiral Bei. My interpretation is that the only reason why much of the 14th BG refused to follow GTVA high command's orders was because Admiral Bei refused to follow those orders, and that set off the effect of individual captains of the fleet having to choose their allegiance - to their immediate commanding officer (and possibly the call of their ethics) or to their commission as an officer in the GTVA. Many of them chose to follow Admiral Bei and defect from the GTVA - or, as the case may be, refuse to execute orders that they considered either illegal, or just going against GTVA's principles. Considering the ease at which human beings follow authority, I doubt any mass defection and dereliction of duty would have happened without Admiral Bei's actions working as a catalyst.
So, I don't think the events in AoA were that big of a change for the majority of the 14th BG - aside from being rather distressing and probably traumatic for some - but for some key personnel, it may have made them see things from a different perspective. Instead of asking would the *entire battle group* abandoned their task, a better question is would Admiral Bei have refused the orders without the events of Age of Aquarius?
It's certainly possible, but unlikely. At the beginning of the campaign, he is portrayed as a focused, detached, even bitter, career officer. At the end of the campaign, he's in a completely different mental state and probably has a lot of new, different motivators affecting his decision-making.
As for why so many of the captains chose to follow Bei rather than remain with the GTVA, there are many reasons why that may be the case. One of which would be that when a group of people goes through a traumatic experience, such as mortal danger in battle, they tend to form rather strong bonds. Maybe many of the battle group's captains had a sense of loyalty to Admiral Bei as a result of that type of bond?
Or maybe 14th BG just happened to have statistically unusual amount of officers with high morals and they just felt the orders were wrong, and when Bei refused the orders it gave them an "out" by following his example?
Or maybe they *were* changed by the events of the AoA. Who knows? What do you think?
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I think there is something to be said for the shared experience explanation offered by Herra Tohtorio.
On arriving in Sol, Admiral Bei had just lead his command through a harrowing experience with the majority of his command in tact and without making decisions with unpleasant repercussions . as Herra says, this builds up a bond of respect and loyalty like no other indeed some of the officers may have even felt honor bound to follow Bei as a result.
As for who knew, I think the ship captains and airwing commanders would have to had been in the loop on the outline of the plan and at least their specific bits in order to ensure everyone was in the needed places to provide maximum threat when the threat was made and to ensure the crews followed their orders when the move was made.
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I think that if the original GTVA plan had proceeded as planned, there would not have been much hesitation, yet alone a mass defection, simply because there isn't much time to think in the heat of battle. Look at how much hesitation the 14th showed when they blew up the Renjian. Namely, zero.
The majority probably wouldn't have liked what they were doing, but given the fact most of those were veterans, I cannot see mass defections or abandoning of posts in the middle of a combat situation.
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Herro brings up a good point that Admiral Bei may have been the catalyst for mass defections.
Let me phrase the question a slightly different way then: would Bei have defected without the events of AoA? Since it's probable he was one of the few who knew the 'real' orders, would he have carried out the original plan without AoA happening? Would he have been willing to attack Earth or would he have refused anyways?
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Since it's probable he was one of the few who knew the 'real' orders,
It's not just probable; it's explicitly stated.
I think it's highly likely Bei would have carried out his orders if the Vishnans hadn't interfered; all of his orders.
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I think it's highly likely there were computer models that assessed the likelihood of the 14th to follow all the orders and they predicted they would be obeyed regardless of the moral situation. Alas, the whole reason they went to war was precisely because of social computer models that predicted a horrible indictment with this reunion with Sol. It would be silly for them then not to use similar models to predict their own crews' reaction to this controversial mission.
It's a good question, because it doesn't feel completely right. You tellin me that a pilot, upon seeing the beauty that Earth is for the first time in their lives (for many at least), would then not hesitate to fire upon Terran ships? Threaten them with nukes and so on and so forth? At least some bewilderment would definitely occur. Nevertheless, this was the designed plan, and so it was bound to be successful at least in its attempted execution.
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Here is something else to consider. We know who the UEF are, the 14th didnt, the GTVA had very tight control on the data coming from Sol and the 14th had no way to verify what they were told. Tell those ships crews that the local government is corrupt and regularly engages in acts criminalized under BETAC and suddenly in their eyes this is the act of a swift blow designed to minimize the impact of the confrontation on the civilian population while rescuing them from an evil regime.
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Oh sure, complete propaganda could be a useful tool. But then why wasn't it used beforehand as a briefing mechanism to control expectations? Clearly they didn't trust their own propagandist abilities.
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We enter at the point where all preparations have been made, we have no idea what the battle group has been briefed regarding the operation in the run up
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Here is something else to consider. We know who the UEF are, the 14th didnt, the GTVA had very tight control on the data coming from Sol and the 14th had no way to verify what they were told. Tell those ships crews that the local government is corrupt and regularly engages in acts criminalized under BETAC and suddenly in their eyes this is the act of a swift blow designed to minimize the impact of the confrontation on the civilian population while rescuing them from an evil regime.
The big lie doesn't work that well unless you can kill anyone who can contradict you.
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Here is something else to consider. We know who the UEF are, the 14th didnt, the GTVA had very tight control on the data coming from Sol and the 14th had no way to verify what they were told. Tell those ships crews that the local government is corrupt and regularly engages in acts criminalized under BETAC and suddenly in their eyes this is the act of a swift blow designed to minimize the impact of the confrontation on the civilian population while rescuing them from an evil regime.
The big lie doesn't work that well unless you can kill anyone who can contradict you.
But who can contradict you? whistle blowers? discredit them and put them on trial, who else if there? anyway, how long does the ruse need to hold up for, couple of days, a week perhaps from briefing to execution? before it is too late to do anything about it
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We enter at the point where all preparations have been made, we have no idea what the battle group has been briefed regarding the operation in the run up
Yep, well at least we know that the pilots didn't have a clue, and these could be a major source of problems. Ship captains, for instance, we have no idea.
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I think it's highly likely Bei would have carried out his orders if the Vishnans hadn't interfered; all of his orders.
I guess I'm having a slight bit of trouble seeing it with Admiral Bei then. I'm not sure how he'd have been willing to attack Earth before all this happened. If he was willing to defect after AoA, I'm guessing he would have at least questioned the orders to commit deceit and attack Earth beforehand.
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I actually believe the opposite. There's an obvious arc about Bei himself, who is basically playing "Steele" at the get go, armoring himself against his own family that he feels has let him down, emotions and all kinds of these thoughts are probably just a problem to be ignored. At the end, he makes amends with his son and deflects. He's a completely different person. Because the story doesn't focus on the Admiral, perhaps it's not as obvious for us to see, but given all we know, it's clear there's a sharp emotional arc happening in Bei's mind, and if so, hell yes, he would have followed every single order before. The Vishnans have clearly tackled his spirit.
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As a direct follow-up to that point, how well would Lopez have handled the events of AoA?
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I think it's highly likely Bei would have carried out his orders if the Vishnans hadn't interfered; all of his orders.
I guess I'm having a slight bit of trouble seeing it with Admiral Bei then. I'm not sure how he'd have been willing to attack Earth before all this happened. If he was willing to defect after AoA, I'm guessing he would have at least questioned the orders to commit deceit and attack Earth beforehand.
Look at it another way: Would the GTVA, as depicted in BP, give this job to an Admiral who they cannot trust to execute the plan? Bei would have been involved in planning this operation from very early on, with multiple vetting passes before he was actually chosen to lead it.
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Presumably, though, GTVA command (and our absent friends at Blackbird Village) would have noticed in screening that Admiral Bei's estranged son was a senior fighter pilot in his command. Was it just not a big enough deal to knock him from first choice?
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Presumably, though, GTVA command (and our absent friends at Blackbird Village) would have noticed in screening that Admiral Bei's estranged son was a senior fighter pilot in his command. Was it just not a big enough deal to knock him from first choice?
I think so. I guess they figured that whatever went on between them personally didn't impact their professional relationship.
Also, it may have come down to either using Orestes and Temeraire and their command crews, or sending in Steele, who would undoubtedly be as capable as Bei in a tactical sense, but who would probably **** up the political side of it all in some unpredictable way due to him not being able to build a rapport with the UEF authorities (Not saying he's incompetent as a politician, just that Bei is much better at it than he is).
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The question for me is what would've happened to Steele's command in the alternate universe once they ended up scattered — or if in fact they would've ended up scattered at all. So much of the 14th's success depended on the confident, independent, aggressive action of its constituent elements even under some really unexpected circumstances.
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The question for me is what would've happened to Steele's command in the alternate universe once they ended up scattered — or if in fact they would've ended up scattered at all. So much of the 14th's success depended on the confident, independent, aggressive action of its constituent elements even under some really unexpected circumstances.
You mean with Steele being the plans within plans moving pieces in a carefully orchastrated pattern and the AoA scenario depending more on reactions both of the Taskforce commander and its component senior officers?
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Here is something else to consider. We know who the UEF are, the 14th didnt, the GTVA had very tight control on the data coming from Sol and the 14th had no way to verify what they were told. Tell those ships crews that the local government is corrupt and regularly engages in acts criminalized under BETAC and suddenly in their eyes this is the act of a swift blow designed to minimize the impact of the confrontation on the civilian population while rescuing them from an evil regime.
The big lie doesn't work that well unless you can kill anyone who can contradict you.
They don't necessarily need to attempt the big lie, but with their crews in the dark and that gives the GTVA the opportunity to manufacture an incident that make the UEF appear the aggressors. The 14th BG could have been sent through the gate with an Ops Plan ready to execute that would provide the illusion that the GTVA was provoked. Once some "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" took place battlegroup personnel would be placed on a confrontational footing while operational tempo would reduce the chance of second guessing. Once that machine is put in gear its momentum will carry it through and assuming the Sol System was decisively secured the GTVA can probably keep the lid on it long enough that it no longer matters when the truth comes to light.
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I don't think Steele would've allowed his fleet to split up as much as Bei did, with two caveats--
1) They'd be negligent not to do some scouting just to ascertain their current location/status/situation.
2) If one of Steele's ships went running off like the GTC Duke did, you can bet he'd have sent forces to regain control.
Ditto for Lopez. In any case, they need some information, and at that point the only method for gaining data was to do some good old-fashioned recon.
I'm going to change the direction of this topic a little:
Did the 14th Battlegroup really change during the events of AoA? Did their experiences (esp. those of Bei's Sr and Jr) affect the actions of the whole fleet--
OR
Did the 14th Battlegroup under Adm Bei get sent through because its personnel had a higher average NGRI sensitivity in the first place because Threat-Two retroactively contrived events for that eventuality?
My eyes just went cross-eyed.
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I don't blame you, it's an interesting package of questions and I don't even feel the confidence of having all the necessary facts in my memory to recall in a such analytical systematic way.
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If we consider GTVI documents released through Granite Hunter Ops as legitimate there is an interesting theory forwarded on the subject. Primarily that events in the alternate universe were in part contrived by Threat Two in order to create a control group of humans that they could modify, specifically the sleepers stored on Sanctuary. This control group would then be inserted into the prepared environment on SoL. Whether or not Threat Two was capable of influencing 14th Battle Group personnel assignments I cannot theorize, however, if we accept that Sanctuary is the foundation of a larger Threat Two operation then they at least must of expected to utilize the 14th in order to safely conduct Sanctuary to SoL.
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There's a notion forming in my head and I don't think I can articulate it quite accurately now but I want to get it written out before it leaves and my kids distract me again.
Threat-Two may be capable of affecting past events (from our perspective) because their perception/interaction with space-time is different, and potentially far more advanced (for lack of a better phrase) than our own. With the idea that the Sanctuary and the events of AoA were some sort of experiment to test the human species for potential...ascension?...There is an implication that the Vishnans themselves are not aware of the future--at least not any moreso than we are.
This is a thought that I find simultaneously reassuring and quite disturbing, because here's where it happened.
Because if the Vishnans cannot see their own future any better than we can, then they can be outfoxed. However, if they can affect the past (again, from our perspective) why would they not be acting to preserve their own interests from ahead of our perspective, or are they in fact altering it in some so very subtle way that we ourselves cannot grasp we are being manipulated as the epileptic trees begin flowing forth?
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This idea of a species that cannot see the future but can interact with its own past is very interesting and has its own set of amazing issues, Arthur C Clark made a great story about that kind of thing.
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Which one? For some reason I'm defaulting to Asimov's The End of Eternity
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That's the one.
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You guys make a lot of sense and I should have realized Admiral Bei had knowledge of the 'real' plan beforehand. It's just me probably, but I still kind of have trouble seeing Admiral Bei and some of the other higher ups originally being willing to possibly fry Chicago, London, Tokyo, etc. in beam fire.
They must have had some kind of war plan in case the UEF didn't surrender after the 14th parked itself above Earth right?
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They would have taken the UEF completely by surprise.
Aside from Calder no one expected hostilities to begin with.
I don't think we would see a Diomedes cruising through Bradybury Fleetyards executing helpless UEF ships, but they TEVs would arrive ready for battle, while the UEF was not.
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What do you think the plan was if the 14th was able to get in position above Earth, made their demands and the UEF said they wouldn't surrender Earth without a fight? If all the 14th's ships were concentrated at Earth, wouldn't the UEF fleets 'surround' them?
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They can't afford to not surrender in that instance. If the GTVA glasses even one major city on Earth it's tens of millions dead. It takes time to surround someone. It takes even longer to render them combat ineffective, and five or ten or fifty cities would be a smoking, glassed ruin by then.
It's a bluff that the UEF cannot call without critically failing in every phase.
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I feel like, based on the Blitz, the Tevs are probably perfectly capable of devastating Earth even in the present strategic environment.
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They are. But in the immediate sense in a hypothetical Earth encirclement before the real commencement of hostilities, they have both the tactical presence to accomplish it and a total lack of political pressure to avoid doing it.
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I feel like, based on the Blitz, the Tevs are probably perfectly capable of devastating Earth even in the present strategic environment.
Given the timeframe CASSANDRA estimates for Steele's attack at the end of Act 3, they Tevs are not only capable of an attack on Earth, but are right about to engage in one.
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I feel like, based on the Blitz, the Tevs are probably perfectly capable of devastating Earth even in the present strategic environment.
Yes, but the geopolitical situation didn't allow that to happen up until the War Dogs attack on the Carthage gave Steele tactical command freedoms that he never had before. The successful attack on the Carthage in Act 3 probably only gave him more power to conduct the war his way, and what that's really going to mean for the UEF I suspect we'll have to wait for Act 4 to find out.
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Are you guys sure the Tev's plans to attack Earth includes glassing cities? I feel like that's something they're not willing to do. By the logic that they're perfectly capable to show up in force around Earth's orbit and and start bombing the **** out of the cities, something's holding them back. Either it's that they're not willing to kill civilians en mass on Earth, or they know something's waiting for them at Earth that is a 'significant hurdle' in forcing the UEF to surrender.
I seriously doubt they Tevs are willing to exterminate a significant portion of Earth's population for the sake of victory. They'd have attacked already if that wasn't a showstopper for them.
I'm sure Steele has a plan to achieve victory without glassing major cities.
BTW does anyone have any data on what the GTA's civilian population is right now?
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I believe the plan was to threaten to glass cities, not glass them as a 1st step. It's more murky what would have happened if the UEF didn't surrender at that point.
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Are you guys sure the Tev's plans to attack Earth includes glassing cities? I feel like that's something they're not willing to do.
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BTW does anyone have any data on what the GTA's civilian population is right now?
I seem to recall that the HoL representative in the Nagari dream said that there was political unrest in the GTVA as a result of the war. I've always interpreted the Tev approach as actually being "mercy through quick victory". That is, smash the UEF military as swiftly and brutally as possible, so that they can establish control in the system without resorting to large scale atrocities. Doing crap like nuking cities and killing tens of millions of civilians would probably be wildly unpopular with the GTA public - after all, a big motivation for re-opening the portal to Sol was to be an emotional re-uniting with the people of Earth.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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?
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I somehow doubt, that beams, fired from orbit, will do nothing but glass the surface...
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.