A worthy opponent at last

Well, there is the very first story arc of this comic, where Guy Gaillard is just about exactly what you're asking for. >>>

Did you find Guy to be a respectable, capable villain.  I did not.  I found him buffoonish not sinister

  That brings up a bit of the real world I am familliar with.

    Large organisations are prone to reward compliance to the rules , old organisations tend to have a very large rulebook.

    Often the guys that get ahead are not so well adapted to the real world as they are familiar with the rules. Intelligence can help a person get ahead by understanding the rules , but this is a certain amount of intelectual effort and time and work devoted to the rules themselves and not devoted to coping with nature , or any new thing.

     Someone with a penchant for improvasation,a talent for invention may actually be at a disadvantage to someone equally talented whose talent is complyance.

     I don't think Guy was unrealistic in that way, and I can see a good excuse for most of the senior officers introduced to the story , as products of a very large and very old organisation , to seem kinda dull.

(And in Babbette I find a kindred soul -- oh how I want to ride that coaster!)

Ah. My kindred soul is Reggie in that respect. Although not in others; I'd never make a good con man.

The UW has weaknesses which the Cerereans can exploit. Instead of just conquering Ceres, they need to give their people some excuse for doing so.

So the Cerereans defeat the UW, and the UW suffers its economic collapse. Not too unbelievable.

What happens 100 years later, when the survivors on Earth are under a Stalinist-style dictatorship? How does Ceres retain its independence then?

By that time, of course, Tobi Kobayashi will have come up with something, though. And so will others like him.

In that situation? Ceres get carpet bombed. Statists laugh and give their praise to glorious leader.

In that situation? Ceres get carpet bombed. Statists laugh and give their praise to glorious leader.

Precisely. That's why I noted that to avoid that, Tobi Kobayashi would have to come up with something.

Such as - Ceres now orbits Alpha Centauri, UW doesn't know how to follow them.

I don't call that dishonest; it's entertaining enough - and it doesn't really fool anyone either. Lots of fiction, even light entertainment with no political agenda whatever, has the hero escaping from scrapes that would have ended up fatal for anyone in real life - maybe not every time, but after the twentieth such scrape, the hero would have failed at least once. Does that make the Indiana Jones series of movies dishonest?

In that situation? Ceres get carpet bombed. Statists laugh and give their praise to glorious leader.

Precisely.

I suppose it's possible that those running the UW government would be that stupid, but I doubt it.  Did you both forget the last panel on page 98?  Those running a powerful government will want to continue ruling and living well (while the bulk of the people suffer).

In that situation? Ceres get carpet bombed. Statists laugh and give their praise to glorious leader.

Precisely.

I suppose it's possible that those running the UW government would be that stupid, but I doubt it.  Did you both forget the last panel on page 98?  Those running a powerful government will want to continue ruling and living well (while the bulk of the people suffer).

If the UW really wanted Ceres it wouldn't be hard to take it. Even if they're retards. Mostly because the environment makes it so easy to go "whoops they all die. Big accident. Total tragedy"

If the UW really wanted Ceres it wouldn't be hard to take it. Even if they're retards. Mostly because the environment makes it so easy to go "whoops they all die. Big accident. Total tragedy"

Some people off Terra will not react kindly to your "Big accident".   During the next few years, several "extinction level events" could occur on Earth.

While you can refuse to recognize the significance of page 98, not all of the people running the UW government would be that blind.

I doubt you'd get any extinction events. Ceres are a bunch of anarchists touching themselves on a planets core and lamenting that nobody realises how perfect and flawless they are.
Nobody would really give a flying donkey shit if they all died.

I doubt you'd get any extinction events.

You forget Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. It's not as if people on Mars even think that Ceres is full of weirdos; instead, I suspect they rather prefer it to Earth.

I can see your point, though, that the UW might successfully make it look like an accident.

But you're forgetting Tobi. Even if the UW doesn't know about him... I mean, they remember him, given the Tanglenet, but it's not as if they know where to find him. Although they came close once...

The question will attacking Earth be worth it?
Making one of the systems big powers your enemy because of a bunch of anarchists sitting on a pile of metal covered in ice isn't a smart move.

Holt and the rest are missing a big point. The anarchists of Ceres would not kill billions of nobodies to get even. Remember, people are one and one and one, not billions of identical units. Ed and Reggie would not do a Dresden. They might do a Pearl Harbor and the UW war fleet goes poof. They might take out military bases. They might even knock the UN building into the East River, but they'd leave the rest of NY alone.

That might even be an answer, knock out their military space capabilities. Earth becomes landlocked, ignored like one of the bypassed islands in the Pacific War. Don't call us, we'll call you.

Holt and the rest are missing a big point. The anarchists of Ceres would not kill billions of nobodies to get even.

Are you saying no human would do it or AnCap types would not do it?

To be fair attacking military installations won't stop Earth. It would be the equivalent of kicking a bunch of beehives and smearing yourself with their honey.

Ed and Reggie wouldn't. It is not how they think. It escapes me how any sane person could.

Denying the other guy military assets is a good way to keep them from making war. I refer you to 4 Japanese carriers which stopped mattering to their war effort during the Battle of Midway.