Any more plot predictions?
I've been trying figure out the possibilities with this Christmas War thing.
Chang seems to think that the Army company he nominally commands is there to take over Ceres after provoking a casus belli. Clearly, Chang believes that the Cereans are no match for his troops. Ed thinks that the U.W. company is being set up: the U.W. is looking for a casus belli, all right, but they don't think the company would win on its own, in fact, they don't want them to win. The U.W's real purpose, he thinks, is to create buckets of blood and body parts to edit and spin as barbarian aggression to the U.W's captive population.
Ok, as far as it goes, but it's a bit confusing. Do the U.W. subjects have access to the tanglenet? For the U.W's plans to work, I'm assuming that they do, but it's filtered. It would be ridiculous, after all, to claim one thing, then be proven as not only liars, but murderers, too. And yet, copies of the true incident would eventually be out there for all to see, unless the U.W. was planning to sever their population from the tanglenet entirely, which could be explained to the serfs as necessary because of war.
Consider the situation the U.W. is in: The checks will start bouncing soon, which will demonstrate to one and all the failure of the state and the lies they'd been feeding them, but what if they can blame all their problems on the Cereans? That changes things. The U.W. can launch a war against Ceres and pretend the Cereans started it, blame any damage to their economy on the Cereans, shut down on the tanglenet, and do whatever they want to unimpeded. By the time the truth is known, the war will be over and Ceres will be subdued or obliterated.
Now what would conceivably stop this nefarious plan before it gets off the ground? I think it would be very nice indeed to have a recording of Rhonda demanding that Chang order his troops to start killing Cereans, and, btw, spilling the entire evil U.W. plot. Before anything happens, Ed, or even better, Guy, (haven't seen much of him lately) walks in on Rhonda and tells her that the troops have heard everything.
Rhonda goes into a rage and attacks Guy, who, being more used to Cerean gravity, and is a skilled knife fighter, manages to hold her in the air where her strength would be useless, and put a knife to her throat. The U.W. troops are offered the same deal as the earlier invasion fleet and many stay.
I don't this will all happen, but I'd love to see it.