[Phantom Hoover]

TbH it always satisfied me simply to assume that the GTVA has Nagari screening procedures for all its senior officials, and Steele has been flagged and trained to keep his guard up, rather than it being because he's another of ~the chosen ones~.

[Axem]

The pilot from Vassago's Dirge is definitely not Steele. For mentions PhantomHoover has mentioned and things like being in completely different squadrons.

[qwadtep]

TbH it always satisfied me simply to assume that the GTVA has Nagari screening procedures for all its senior officials, and Steele has been flagged and trained to keep his guard up, rather than it being because he's another of ~the chosen ones~.

Then those procedures have catastrophically failed, given that ex-Admiral Bei was so easily turned by the very alien influence the GTVA sent him to Sol to purge.

[CT27]

Now that's a good question, CT. I'd guess that he would have two major moods. First, he would be extremely concerned about the events on Tenebra. The Vasudan massacre, the assassination, the perfect attack on the Carthage and the sniping effort at the Jupiter station are signs that the enemy got a lot smarter. Not only smarter, but manipulative. He knows that the lack of obedience from Lopez was seen and exploited. He knows it because he had also seen it. However, he still has the pace and a lot of new firepower. He is focused on the endgame on Earth.

And he may well be able to guess why Laporte stole what she stole in that defense-tower mission.

This is all we can safely speculate. If we sacrifice "safety", we can further speculate why was he so dead on in his Batman gambit with the Wargods? Why had he been so precise and clairvoyant so far? If you notice, you'll see that only the Fedayeen were able to emulate the kind of wider manipulation that Steele pulled off. But the Fedayeen have a shivan-corpse-super computer. Steele is also Nagari sensitive, aware of it and disciplined; The GTI has had ample access to dead Shivans during both great wars. You do the math.

So Steele is probably feeling kind of bummed but still has hope?

[MatthTheGeek]

What Steele is probably feeling right now is how the GTVA was feeling when they sent Steele to Sol in the first place : they are running out of time (for a ton of reasons), and they have to finish this, now. The Tevs are scared of the sekret project, they are scared of a civil war exploding at home, they are scared that their war in Sol is leaving them defenseless against a Shivan incursion. They are scared about what MORPHEUS implies.

In all that, the few victories caused by the Fedayeen aren't a major cause of concern by themselves, since the Tev still have a major military advantage, both in term of numbers and strategically. What is a matter of concern is that it made them loose precious time, and that's not something they feel they can afford.

Steele is not waging a war against the UEF. He's not even waging a war against the Fedayeen or Al'Dawa. Those are just pieces in his chessboard. The way I see it, what he's fighting, is time.

[CT27]

If time is the enemy, should the GTVA be going after enemy warships or logistics forces (since it sounds like they may not have time to continue a sustained campaign against both)?

[crizza]

You do realize that the endgame is mere days away?
There is simply no need to go after the logistic forces(wich they still want intact by the way).

[niffiwan]

This is all we can safely speculate. If we sacrifice "safety", we can further speculate why was he so dead on in his Batman gambit with the Wargods? Why had he been so precise and clairvoyant so far? If you notice, you'll see that only the Fedayeen were able to emulate the kind of wider manipulation that Steele pulled off. But the Fedayeen have a shivan-corpse-super computer. Steele is also Nagari sensitive, aware of it and disciplined; The GTI has had ample access to dead Shivans during both great wars. You do the math.

I've been thinking about this point.  If the GTVA have access to a shivan corpse super computer, and Steele can use it to guide/predict his plans, then why haven't the GTVA used it to run predictions on their economy, similar to what the UEF has done?

[Klaustrophobia]

because they don't care.  all else is secondary to fighting the shivans to the GTVA.  at least the terran half.

[niffiwan]

They should care   A strong economy means more fighters & warships, i.e. would let them fight the Shivans more effectively (at least for the strategy they are using)

[Phantom Hoover]

We don't even know if the UEF modelling computers are Shivan-based; they almost certainly aren't.

[Drogoth]

Even if they were it might not work well.

Sol is a confined and fairly unified areas.

Simulations for economic development do squat when you're putting out brushfire rebellions.

[niffiwan]

We don't even know if the UEF modelling computers are Shivan-based; they almost certainly aren't.

Why wouldn't they be?  The Council of Elders formed the Fedayeen (I think?) They presumably know about CASSANDRA.  Why would there be only one shivan corpse available to the old GTI in Sol?  Also, the simulations/predictions run by the UEF are amazingly complex, creepily so (from the conversation with the UEF civvies, can't find the thread at the moment).  It seems at least plausible that these simulations are being run on another shivan super computer. 

Even if they were it might not work well.

Sol is a confined and fairly unified areas.

Simulations for economic development do squat when you're putting out brushfire rebellions.

Would it still not let you find more effective ways of putting out the brushfires?  After all, economic depression is at last partly to blame for the many brushfires.

[Klaustrophobia]

We don't even know if the UEF modelling computers are Shivan-based; they almost certainly aren't.

Why wouldn't they be?  The Council of Elders formed the Fedayeen (I think?) They presumably know about CASSANDRA.  Why would there be only one shivan corpse available to the old GTI in Sol?  Also, the simulations/predictions run by the UEF are amazingly complex, creepily so (from the conversation with the UEF civvies, can't find the thread at the moment).  It seems at least plausible that these simulations are being run on another shivan super computer. 

Even if they were it might not work well.

Sol is a confined and fairly unified areas.

Simulations for economic development do squat when you're putting out brushfire rebellions.

Would it still not let you find more effective ways of putting out the brushfires?  After all, economic depression is at last partly to blame for the many brushfires.

we DO know the economic models aren't run on shivan corpses.  it's stated in the campaign.  laporte mentions how CASSANDRA can churn out 30-year projections on the gefs (among many other analyses at the same time) while the enormous supercomputers of the ubuntu government are taxed to the max with 5-year economic projections.

[niffiwan]

ah.  Oops.  Missed that 

 

[Mars]

You assume that the GTVA has not run economic simulations at all - I find that implausible. More probably their starting position economically was worse, and their concentration was not mostly an economic one.

[-Norbert-]

This is all we can safely speculate. If we sacrifice "safety", we can further speculate why was he so dead on in his Batman gambit with the Wargods? Why had he been so precise and clairvoyant so far? If you notice, you'll see that only the Fedayeen were able to emulate the kind of wider manipulation that Steele pulled off. But the Fedayeen have a shivan-corpse-super computer. Steele is also Nagari sensitive, aware of it and disciplined; The GTI has had ample access to dead Shivans during both great wars. You do the math.

I've been thinking about this point.  If the GTVA have access to a shivan corpse super computer, and Steele can use it to guide/predict his plans, then why haven't the GTVA used it to run predictions on their economy, similar to what the UEF has done?

Maybe because of their massive paranoia for everything that is Shivan.
If they are aware that a Shivan corpse can be used like that in the first place, they might consider it too risky, since it might very well leave them open to Shivan "hacking".

[niffiwan]

You assume that the GTVA has not run economic simulations at all - I find that implausible. More probably their starting position economically was worse, and their concentration was not mostly an economic one.

well, no, I didn't assume they hadn't run any at all.  Rather, that if they'd had access to the level of computational power available in a Shivan corpse, they could have recovered economically far better than they did. 

Maybe because of their massive paranoia for everything that is Shivan.
If they are aware that a Shivan corpse can be used like that in the first place, they might consider it too risky, since it might very well leave them open to Shivan "hacking".

Do we know if Thorn and the other analysts are Nagari sensitive?  IIRC, Laporte needed the quantum pulse transceiver in order to enter the Nagari network, so perhaps just using the corpse for simulations doesn't have an increased risk of Shivan "hacking".  However, I take your point about fear of all-things-Shivan (although you'd hope the GTVA leadership is more rational about it that, say, Admiral Morian)

[Phantom Hoover]

The GTVA is still in many ways a frontier society. They don't have the stable, closed system the UEF has that can be modelled so accurately.

[-Sara-]

Here's one: the GTVA could promise to share Sol's knowledge on terraforming, to bribe the Vasudans into quickly finishing the war, in return for making Vasuda Prime habitable again. Ofcourse the Vasudans moved past Vasuda Prime, which is why they criticize the Terrans for being obsessed with Sol. So it might backfire.