Sorry if I came across a bit heavy handed. I was just pointing out that I don’t think legal process really applies. It’s out in the Verge, so the only “law” that could apply is the Solarian League’s Eradni Edict, and without a planet that’s irrelevant. As far as I know, the only system that’s been mentioned that doesn’t have an inhabited planet is Yildun, the home of Technodyne Industries (and incidentally another junction.)

As far as sticking in a habitat, that could be a possibility, but it would only work if the owner maintained a significant military presence — and was willing to go to war against anyone who staged a “pirate” raid to clear it out so they could put in their own habitat.

Remember that Erewhon was expecting Manticore to “do something” about Verdant Vista once they learned about the wormhole. The High Ridge Government’s failure to do anything was what lead to the current situation.

Well, while I agree that there’s a certain amount of “we’re superior, so we’ll win automatically” thinking going on, I don’t think that’s the primary issue. The biggest issue is that Albrecht and clones have inherited a plan that was started 600 years ago, and have never had to deal with anything where their grand strategic vision has been derailed by “the devil in the details.” They’re also hampered by excessive compartmentalization and a dozen other things that they just don’t have the experience to know look good on paper, but don’t work when you get down in the muck. In fact, Detweiller said once that he had serious misgivings about the “onion”.

And that applies to everyone on Mesa – they’ve inherited a plan that they had no voice in creating, and most of them are doing their part without a whole lot of commitment. In fact, because of the compartmentalization, most of them don’t know what the grand strategic plan is, so they’re busy doing their own thing.

@19 Saul

The Detweilers aren’t that stupid. They wouldn’t be considering turning the planet into a smoking cinder if they could anticipate other people taking the system over. I don’t know what else they’ve got up their sleeve, but that possibility is too obvious for them to have ignored it in their planning. I think.

In any case, they’re out in the Verge, where interstellar law is whatever the guy with the biggest navy says it is.

While some of the RMN’s naval capabilities are public knowledge on Manticore, lots of it will not be released to the general Manticore public.

David Weber has stated that Manticore counter-intelligence is very strong in regards to Navy matters.

It is likely that like Haven, the Alignment is strongest in gaining Political intelligence and placing agents into non-military Manticore governmental organizations.

Even if all life on Torch is gone, its not clear who has ownership. It may still be owned by the few surviving elements of Torch’s population who were just off planet. Just what legal bodies have influence over territory outside the solarian empire?

Even if the planet is a dead unowned area, there would be a massive rush to claim it.
As soon as word got out, I can see every nearby political group racing to get a small orbiting or planetary habitat to the torch system to claim ownership.
Any wormhole is worth a lot of money, and will be fought over (legally or militarily). Just look at the islands in SE asia were country x maroons a few folks on tiny islands so they can claim sovereignty.

The best the Alignment could hope for is that they would win that legal/military race for ownership.
Barring that the Alignment might hope the system would be tied up in legal isues until its too late.

Since DW has written that he expects the series to last another 5-10 novels, maybe the Datweilers will go on. From DW’s web site FAQs, his response dated May 2009: “My current estimate is that the Honorverse will go on for at least another five to ten novels.” I assume that we’ll see the next generation (sorry about that) grow up some more.

Therefore, over time, they are going to become progressively out of touch with the RMN’s capabilities and intentions…no doubt this is going to cause them to both under and over-estimate the RMN’s operational and strategic goals/technology in several critical respects.

Well, “Oyster Bay” is David’s play on words for “Pearl Harbor,” so you’re right on the money for the correspondence. We don’t really know what the Alignment is planning to use the wormhole for – if anything. At the moment they seem mostly concerned that nobody else have access to it.

I also don’t think we know what their intelligence assessment of Manticore’s military capability is, other than it’s a lot better than the Solarian League’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s fairly accurate.

Without digging into spoilers, we don’t know at this time whether Oyster Bay succeeds or fails, and if it succeeds, to what extent.

The expectation on this particular forum is that we don’t discuss anything that hasn’t been published or posted here or on Jiltanith (and that isn’t marked there as a spoiler, btw.) There’s another forum for discussing what’s in the e-arc.