Admiral Cajal has three sources of intelligence about Avalon.
(i) "'...our analysis of enemy fire patterns, as recorded at the first battle of Avalon, does indicate Equatoria is a weak spot.'" (p. 622)
(ii) Not only do Avalonian defectors bring some information with them but also officials secretly of the peace group have given some of the more recent defectors additional information to pass on.
(iii) Philippe Rochefort spent months on the planet and become closely acquainted with officers of the home guard, even including the son of the First Marchwarden.
Unsuspected problems (for the Terrans):
Equatoria is poorly defended but it will be disastrous to land there;
information fed to the defectors and to Rochefort has been designed to encourage the Terrans to land there.
The rest is future history.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
All this makes me wonder if Daniel Holm read Sun T'zu's THE ART OF WAR, esp. Chapter XIII, which deals with how best to use spies.
Ad astra! Sean
One of the reasons being a general (or national leader) is a bit hair-raising is that you can never completely rely on your intelligence data. You're always going to be making decisions based on biased or misunderstood or incomplete information.
It -will- be incomplete; and not only that, it may well be 'poisoned' by enemy disinformation.
But if you get too paranoid about that, you'll screw yourself.
Eg., Stalin had extensive intelligence about the German attack on the USSR in 1941.
He disregarded it as English disinformation... with very unfortunate results.
One example of a clever bit of misleading information: in 1940, the French and British assumed that the German attack would be a somewhat-mechanized version of the Schlieffen Plan of 1914 -- an attack through Belgium.
The thing is, most of the -German- army thought that was what they were going to do; it was the official plan for most of 1939.
It was the traditional invasion route from Central to Western Europe, because it was the biggest area of flat ground and had the best transport net and fewest major terrain obstacles.
(And in the old days, it was important that it had the richest farmland, which made it easier to life off the land and get replacement horses etc. for transport.)
But Hitler never liked that plan, and listened to some unorthodox German generals, who secretly came up with the plan that was put into operation, to hit the right flank of the Anglo-French front, not the left wing which advanced into Belgium with their best troops and the whole of the BEF.
They managed to -keep- it secret, went through the difficult mountainous-forested terrain, and fell on the second-line (mostly reservist) French formations and shattered them.
The rest, as the saying goes, is history -- it did what the Germans had vainly expected to do in 1914, knock France out of the war and force the British off the continent.
Hitler then expected to make a deal with the British to get them to be benevolent neutrals, and -then- turn on the USSR in 1941.
Which would have worked perfectly... except that Churchill became PM when Chamberlain fell deathly ill.
And that required Churchill surviving to be PM (he nearly died several times between 1914 and 1940), -and- Chamberlain getting sick.
Which shows the role of information security in history -- the German attack plan in 1940 wouldn't have worked if the French had been expecting it.
And the role of unpredictable contingency.
The reason that we didn't end up with a Nazi German empire from the Atlantic to the Urals with a neutral Britain was because one man survived to late middle age, and another got sick and died.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And the bitter memories Hitler had of the deadlocked trench warfare of the Western front in WW I contributed to his dislike of invading France thru the Low Countries.
If the French had known of the actual plan the Germans used they would have transferred some of their best divisions to the right wing.
Besides Stalin not believing his spies very accurate reports about OPERATION BARBAROSSA, I've read that he fell for German disinformation about plots in the Soviet Army to oust him from power. Result: the Army purges which so devastated the Red Army. A classic example of successful disinformation!
Churchill had a bad accident while visiting the US which nearly killed him. If he had died then he would never have become PM!
Ad astra! Sean
We detect the activities of the Time Patrol.
Kaor, Paul!
I can imagine that! But I am glad Anderson never tried to link up his Technic series with the Time Patrol stories. It would have been far too easy to mess that up!
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: very true! 8-).
That's why predicting the future is a mug's game which I sedulously avoid.
There are simply too many contingent, accidental factors which make it impossible.
Eg., the current US Presidential election has two men who have (according to the insurance tables) an 11% chance (each) of dropping dead before November.
So much hangs on such an uncertain election.
Sean,
But Anderson dis link time travel to future history in a very controlled way with the Maurai.
Paul.
Kaorm Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I only wish someone other than the erratic, unsteady Trump would be the likely GOP nominee! My fear is so many hate Trump that the senescent bungler "Josip" will win, with or without the usual Democrat dirty tricks.
I would far rather DeSantis, Haley, or Tim Scott would be the GOP nominee.
Paul: True, Anderson did link up, very carefully, THERE WILL BE TIME with the Maurai short stories and ORION SHALL RISE. And he did kinda link up the Technic series with the Old Phoenix stories by having Nicholas van Rijn visit that multiversal inn. And that in turn links up with the OPERATION books, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, and A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST.
I've thought more than once that Manuel Argos and Dominic Flandry would also be worthy guests at the Old Phoenix!
Ad astra! Sean
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