How responsible was Foreign Minister Jamison?

[CT25]

The one I'm talking about was Foreign Minister Jamison from "Fleet Action."

What I mean was, was she really all that responsible for the debacle of Confed being virtually disarmed during the Battle of Earth?
(Forgive me if I got some details wrong, it's been a while since I read the book and I don't have it in front of me right now).

She argued to the President that the war was causing deficits that would take generations to pay off and the armistice should therefore be signed. But if the war wasn't causing deficits, wouldn't that fact be easily refuted?

Same with her argument about the Red Three (again, sorry if I got the exact name wrong) operation. She argued it wouldn't succeed, but didn't even some admirals agree with her? And if I got it wrong, could someone please tell me what the right name was of that operation (the one where Tolwyn planned to send light carriers behind Kilrathi lines to destroy Kilrathi infrastructure?

With all that (supposedly true) evidence in front of them, wouldn't Confed have signed the False Peace even without her? So was she just a scapegoat, or was she truly the one responsible?

That being said, I probably would have voted convicted her. Her motives were treasonous and naive.

 

[t.c.cgi]

It was my understanding that character was more a representative figurehead used to voice the feelings of Confed as a whole rather than an individual villain. To the best of my memory the book explained that people were tired to the bone of a war with no sign of victory in sight. They wanted to believe the Kilrathi wanted peace because it meant they didn't have to go on that way for another decade or two.

 

[Quarto]

Well, as the book makes clear, she is wholly responsible - she's the obnoxious politician who puts money ahead of the soldiers and all that . I think, all things considered, she's got to be one of the most stereotypical characters in all the books. You're supposed to hate her right from the start. Personally, I've always felt this character is a huge, huge flaw in the book - and one of the reasons why Fleet Action remains my least favourite of all the WC books (oh, the irony!).

 

[Red Baron]

Isn't there a stereotypical incompetent or hippie-like human for the reader to hate in almost every WC novel?

 

[LeHah]

I think, all things considered, she's got to be one of the most stereotypical characters in all the books.

With the possible exception of Tolwyn (due to the overwhelming amount of detail about him, largely cross-pollenated from the games), all that characters in the WC books are painted broadly.

 

[frostytheplebe]

Well, as the book makes clear, she is wholly responsible - she's the obnoxious politician who puts money ahead of the soldiers and all that

Sounds like a certain (D) Massachusetts Senator...

My Understanding is that she is totally responsable... though if you want to put it in that context... couldn't you make the same argument for Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy being responsable for... well lighting the fire that turned into the cold war?

 

[Quarto]

Huh?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

What I mean was, was she really all that responsible for the debacle of Confed being virtually disarmed during the Battle of Earth?

Well, yes, she was a Kilrathi agent. Prince Thrakhath has some inner dialogue midway through the book that confirms that she is acting on his orders in order to save her son (a POW).

In the case of the argument you mention, she was absolutely right--the war was extremely expensive, the prediction that Red Three would be a success were what she quoted, the civilian government *should* be in control of the military and so on. Tolwyn scores an easy rhetorical victory ("I rather think of it as some fine young men and women that we lost..."), but her facts in that particular discussion are correct.

Being right about those facts doesn't change the fact that she negotiated the armistice in the first place at Kilrah's request, and that she went on to argue for faster cuts to the military and to allow Kilrathi access to Earth's capitol (including the suicide bomber who killed most of the Joint Chiefs when the war resumed) according to orders from the enemy. We're even told later on that, prior to the peace, she convinced the President to ignore the initial intelligence that the Kilrathi were building the Hakaga carriers.

Personally, I've always felt this character is a huge, huge flaw in the book - and one of the reasons why Fleet Action remains my least favourite of all the WC books (oh, the irony!).

This tells us one important fact: Quarto has never read 'Pilgrim Stars'.

My Understanding is that she is totally responsable... though if you want to put it in that context... couldn't you make the same argument for Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy being responsable for... well lighting the fire that turned into the cold war?

Senator McCarthy didn't have anything to do with starting the Cold War. "McCarthyism" was a purely domestic conceit--he seized the existing conflict as an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. That's the whole issue anyone has with him in the first place... hunting for communists in Hollywood had nothing to do with the actual conflict with the Soviet Union.