Magnusson's propaganda:
the Polesotechnic League rescue operation upset the Merseian order of things and the League profited from the Merseians' tragedy (David Falkayn, "Day of Burning");
Terrans and Merseians can make peace and an alliance and expand through the galaxy together;
his own father traded with the Roidhunate and even with its home planet until the Starkad incident caused relations to deteriorate (Dominic Flandry, Ensign Flandry).
In other words, Magnusson has completely swallowed their propaganda. Jonah has swallowed the whale. (In fact, I think that he is showing his hand a bit too openly.)
Magnusson has had regular contact with Merseians in combat, in negotiations and during peaceful interludes. Therefore, either he is invincibly naive about Roidhunate intentions or he shares their aims and is secretly collaborating with them. Dominic Flandry mounts an ingenious Intelligence investigation in order to check on that second possibility:
as a token of good will, Magnusson has proposed negotiations, expecting, at this stage, to be rebuffed;
Flandry argues hard that the invitation be accepted;
the Imperial delegation comprises mostly officials with unreasonable expectations;
however, Flandry accompanies them, expecting to be invited to private discussions with Magnusson;
he tells Magnusson that the Imperium wants to sound him out through the medium of personal conversations with Flandry;
in fact, Flandry asks leading questions, trying to learn the extent of Magnusson's contacts with Merseians and their agents, specifically Aycharaych;
meanwhile, spies are sent to Merseia to seek answers to those same questions;
Flandry and the spies will compare notes - except that the spies have been captured and Magnusson is onto Flandry's game.
Nevertheless, that is an impressive concluding mission for Sir Dominic in the Technic History series.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think you are right, Magnusson was showing his hand a bit too much with his propaganda. A pretense of being determined to be tough with the Roidhunate would have helped.
Besides those well meaning but naive officials Flandry mentioned, there were also a few hard headed scholars with the Imperial delegation who had no illusions about Merseia.
I wondered just now if some of those spies sent to Merseia might have been Dennitzan Merseians? Being of the same species as the Merseians of the Roidhunate might help them. Unfortunately, Merseian counterintelligence nailed them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes. Maybe some Dennitzan Merseians and maybe some human beings pretending to be from planets within the Roidhunate.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Humans too, pretending to be from among those humans long subjects of the Roidhun.
Ad astra! Sean
It's fortunate for the Empire that there's only one of Aycharaych...
The operation against Magnusson is carefully conceived. In intelligence work, you always have to use multiple sources, and be especially careful not to believe what you want to believe (always a threat).
Because very clever people on the other side are -trying- to mislead you; you can rarely be absolutely sure that what you "discover" isn't put there to lead you by the nose.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
It was very fortunate for Terra there was only agent like Aycharaych "serving" Merseia.
Yes, I agree, any competent Intelligence service will strive to develop multiple sources, and to try to guard against believing too easily what you want to believe.
Ditto, what you said about the risk of being fed disinformation by your opponents.
Frankly, I expect "Josip" and the Democrats to make a disastrous hash of Intelligence work!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
I’m behind on the blog as usual, and soon to go to bed. You expect “Josip” and the Democrats to make a hash of intelligence work? I am not a Democrat, and not President Biden’s greatest admirer, but do you remember Trump believing what Putin told him over what American intelligence told him? And spilling information acquired from the Israelis to the Russians; it was pointed out that this would make allies reluctant to share other information with American intelligence. And Trump was simply too stupid and intellectually lazy to pay attention to briefings that made more than a couple of points, or to d9 any real reading.
I think that whatever his faults (I’m against the nearly two trillion dollars of additional deficit spending, mislabeled a “stimulus”), President Biden will let the professionals do their jobs, and pay attention to what they tell him.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
I am always grateful when you catch up with the blog.
Paul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
I am glad to see another comment from you! We need contrarian voices like yours.
Actually, I agree with your criticisms of former President Trump. With the caveat that I don't think he was as bad at foreign affairs as you think. But I continue to have no such limited confidence in "Josip" and his Democrats. Almost every week, they give me more reasons to deepen my contempt for them. Such as the disastrous fake "Covid stimulus" bill they rammed thru Congress on a nakedly partisan basis. It's nothing but more barrels stuffed with pork to distribute among left wing factions and big money Democrat donors.
And as we are seeing with the chaos on the southern borders and "Josip's" feeble handling of an ambitious and aggressive China,* I have no confidence he and the Democrats will be of any use wrestling with these and other problems.
Ad astra! Sean
*To say nothing of "Josip" and his son Hunter's extremely dubious personal ties with Peking. The latter was even criticized by the Senate for that reason alone.
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