[Open] Worst Case scenario

[Dartz]

From: "Yearling"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: Worst Case Scenario

NASA once had a rule about not giving astronauts 'No Win' scenarios, to keep them from being discouraged. A scenario in a simulator always had a pre-defined proceedure that would allow the astronauts to beat the scenario and bring the capsule home. This worked right up until a No Win scenario happened in space and they had to come up with a solution or three astronauts wouldn't come home. Suffice to say, NASA changed their training regime soon afterwards.

Thus, it's only by truly considering the worst case scenario that we can really be prepared to handle anything.

Tomorrow morning, the President of the United States calls a special session of congress. After speaking at lenth about days of infamy, staying the course, axes of evil and corruption of precious bodily fluids calls on Congress to declare that a state of war exists between the United States and Fenspace. For whatever reason, the bombing begins in Five Minutes.

How do we win? Or Not Loose.

"We don't" in this case not being an acceptable conclusion.

The Marines are coming. The floor is open to suggestions on how to make them go away.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

From: "Pyrotechie"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

First off, don't expect to be able to use kaboomite. The process to make that is very complex, and I made less than a half-dozen warheads ever - including the one that caused the Kaboomite Incident.

Second off, we ain't got enough people to win a traditional war - we have thousands of people who could fight, they got millions who are already trained to fight. Best we can do is either not lose, or do a scorched-earth strategy. Scorched earth is easy from up here: just drop rocks on them the way Heinlein showed us in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". But that would burn our bridges with what's left of Earth after the war, and it would also piss off the folks at Ben Franklin and aboard the Stingray. It would also cause a lot of climate change - think the summers after Krakatoa turned up to eleven.

We've got a lot of advantages to help us not lose, though.

We can use drones a lot better than the 'Danelaw can. Theirs are almost all run by biological people using VR. We have more immersive telepresence for the biological people who run our drones, and we have a lot of drones that are run by electronic people. If it comes to a shooting match, electronic people almost always have better reflexes than biological people do - and most of us ain't got that "Three Laws" nonsense to worry about. (Of course, there's a big difference between letting Leonard da Quirm run the fight and letting Trigon run the fight and letting me run the fight. I wouldn't pick any of those three options.)

We got a lot of experience shooting down missiles during the Boskone War. I ain't worried about cruise missiles from Earth. And even the 'Danelaw can take out ballistic missiles nowadays.

Psych-ops: If we let Beta or Grovers Corners hover over DC for a few weeks, what are they gonna do besides worry? They can't shoot down something that big, and even if they could, the wreckage would take out some of their top sites. Yeah, they could move - but so could we. And in the meantime, they've got a morale problem of a multi-megaton rock hanging over their heads like Damocles's sword. Thing is, they got more big cities than we got big Unreal Estate, so we'd have to pick our "targets" carefully.

More Psych-ops: Hang a big transmitter in the GEO spot that covers most of the USA, and swamp their signals with our noise. They ain't got enough fibre or copper cable to carry all their cross-country traffic any more. Tell the civilians that they ain't allowed to watch the Kardashians on TV or buy from Amazon until the war's over, and suddenly there's a lot of pressure on their government to wind things up fast.

I can think of a couple of other things, but I don't want to give the Boskos any ideas.

K

---

From: "Koizumi-kun"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

> like Damocles's sword

It was Dionysis' sword. Damocles was the one who had to sit under it.

---

From: "Pyrotechie"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

>> like Damocles's sword

> It was Dionysis' sword. Damocles was the one who had to sit under it.

Yeah, but we all know the name the other way.

K
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Proginoskes]

From: "SingularCherubim"
Newsgroups: talk.fen.philosophy, soc.fen.military
References:
Subject: RE: Worst Case Scenario

Indulging in some cross-posting, since it's a philosopher's response to a military question.

Even if today's Fenspace is utterly annihilated, Fandom and Handwavium are both impossible to suppress. And the government that destroys Fenspace makes an enemy of the entire world, including its own people.

God bless the Truth that fights toward the Sun:
They roll the lies over it, and think that it is done;
But it moves through the ground, and reaches for the air,
And after a while, it's growing everywhere!
God bless the Grass.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

From: "Tinman"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

One thing the Danelaw doesn't get is how many CPU cycles the Fen can devote to stuff. The other thing the don't get is just how expensive it'll be to even attempt this.

Space is big, yo.

It'll be kinda hard to go after the fen when the fen can just buy your infrastructure out from underneath you. It'd even be legal, what with infomorphs slipping between jurisdictions and having FTL comms. Nanosecond Buyout anyone?
Heck, we can embargo them. Pull the licenses, and tell non-US companies to stop selling our kit to the US if they want to keep their licences. That don't seem like much, but we can pull the US into international courts that way.

The other side is, with all those soldiers out in the black learning on the ragged edge (as the majority will not be trained), who's keeping the folks at home safe? It's easy as heck to slip into the USA. How paranoid will they get if fen start posting selfies from all over the place? Catgirl outside the White House, Tachikoma outside the Pentagon, etc, etc... We don't have to even go inside them to point out we can be everywhere.

If you really want to stick it to them, they ratified the Kandor Treaty. Attacking Fenspace puts them on the bad side of the OTHER signatories.

[ECSNorway]

From: Greentrees
To: soc.fen.military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

As a US citizen, I have to say that this is an extremely unlikely scenario, but multiple survival strategies are going to be necessary. At least one of the larger, self-propelled habitats should load up with as many colonists and as much equipment as possible, and get the heck out of the solar system. (I strongly suggest a combo strategy of Greenwood and Jenga at the very least on this one. That'll give us trained personnel and industrial power to rebuild under the Gloval Plan.)

Importantly, make sure that they know we are doing this. Scattering through the galaxy like grains of sand on the wind. To borrow a quote, "The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers."
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Rajvik]

From: "Werewolf"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

As to the "Dropping rocks" warfare scenario;
First: The Dane's have very few sites that they have available to launch from unless they decide to try and use ICBM silo's or wavium. Wavium ain't exactly working well for them as noted in most TSAB reports and launching from nuke silos is a high cost low payload method that as a previous person put out there we could intercept practically at will unless they really tried to swamp us.

Second: Being that there are minimum large capacity launch sites you hit those with precision guided orbital drops.

Third: For your "Rock" you do not use just random space junk and meteors, but a "Shadowrun Classic" of the "Tungsten Telephone Pole" to take out the targets. Dropping a four meter long half meter wide shaft of tungsten carbide from orbit is really going to ruin someone's day while minimizing worldwide collateral damage.

Four:

Spoiler

Before you ask yes, i keep a half dozen in stock, just in case

 

[JakeGrey]

From: "Old Man Tom"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: Re: Worst Case Scenario

As a certain individual who shall remain nameless put it when Mal Fnord was subpoenaed to address a Senate sub-committee, "drop rocks. Big fucking rocks." Well, big enough to completely flatten Groom Lake or Cheyenne Mountain and obliterate one of their carrier groups, anyway. If they didn't sue for peace after that, we keep dropping rocks until they run out of military bases.

(Can you tell I'm really not in a good mood with the US government at the moment? It's a long, off-topic story why, but suffice it to say my relationship with the state of Illinois just gets worse every time I set foot there...)

Or since the US has exactly one 'wavetech vessel in active service, and not a particularly well-armed one at that, we could just sort of quietly ignore them until they get bored or embarrassed. Maybe let the Stingray fire a single missile volley at Arisia for the honour of the flag and then accept their surrender, put them all up in a motel for a night and offer a ceasefire agreement along the lines of "we'll pretend this never happened if you will"?

[Dartz]

From: WeOurselves
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

This thing's not going to be a war in the conventional sense - it'll be paralysed and bubbling, tit-for-tat but not really deciding anything because everyone will be afraid of pushing it to the point where someone thinks they have to go ugly and break out the big guns and have things go the Mass Destruction route. They know we can drop rocks, so they won't push us to the point where we feel we need to drop rocks. We can assume they can get some sunshine onto a missile to Crystal Tokyo, or Kandor City, so we won't push them to the point where they feel they have to try do that. Which, ironically, means not getting to the point of threatening their ability to do it.

Everybody will be afraid to do anything really overt, so it'll be a backstabbing war. They won't even call it a war.

They'll go economic. That's their big advantage. They can Embargo us, hard.

To physically attack us, they'd have to come up here. The problem is, so much of the stuff we rely on to live has to come up here too. Our ship runs tons of it daily. And it's a lot easier for them to stop that from happening, than it is to come all the way up here.

It'll rapidly get harder to get food up here for a start. We'll have to rely on native production. I don't know what stage we're at with that but maybe, just maybe, we could do it. But, right now, it wouldn't take much, if anything, for them to cripple that ability to the point where people start going hungry, and it won't be impossible for them to make getting anything off Earth a lot harder. They won't have to fire a shot to do it, or launch a single battlewagon. They just have to make dealing with us very expensive for the few people that still will. Which means prioritising some settlements over others when there isn't enough to go around. Those will be our weak points.

We have CPU cycles. They have sheer bloody numbers on their side. A massive industry. Newspapers. Media. All of it. They have masses of food and the ability to overproduce it, and probably ship it to places that might consider splitting from Fenspace and paying the Danegeld just to get something to eat. That's how they'll fight us. Not with Marines and Tanks, but with resources, equipment and influence. It'll rapidly get a lot harder to live up here and get all the nice things we've gotten used to, unless you start playing by their rules. Pay the Danegeld, host a military base, be good and behave and your life will be comfortable again.

They also have the ability to rapidly overlook legal niceties when they become inconvenient - don't assume they'll play ball according to their constitution. Or international law.

Furthermore, they won't fight us directly, but they'll start funneling money and arms to the people who will. Maybe they'll be the ones going after our food shipments. I've done convoy duty during the War. It's expensive. It's time consuming. And you'll still loose freighters no matter what you do. It's a fight that'll leach the lifeblood further and further until we're either faced with escalating the fight, or inviting them in with open arms to deal with the issue they created.

I've heard some tinfoil hats suggest that this has already been tried. I won't comment otherwise.

Winning against the United States won't involve dictating peace terms at the White House. Winning means holding out, and making maintaining the conflict more trouble than it's worth. And that will take years

>>We've got a lot of advantages to help us not lose, though.

They have a fixed home base. They have to come up here to get us, but they have to come from a rigidly fixed place. They have fixed national infrastructure. A rigid government structure. We have a lot of Space to hide in and a lot of flexibility - we can move stuff and make them find it. Tinman's right. We can drop down and attack literally anywhere, which means we don't have to do much to keep doing damage. They've a lot of sky to cover. Also. They know this too.

The problem is, pushing it too far risks backing them into a corner where they either have to actually start fighting hard, which risks further escalation, or they look for some other dirty games to play. Remember, a lot of people up here have family still in the States. Also remember what McCarthyism is, or No-Fly lists, or warrantless wire-tapping, or Executive Order 9066. They have all these tools before they ever have to send an F-35 in anger, or a squad of Marines. (And then Games Workshop will sue them over Space Marines so.... )

>>More Psych-ops: Hang a big transmitter in the GEO spot that covers most of the USA, and swamp their signals with our noise. They ain't got enough fibre or copper cable to carry all their cross-country traffic any more. Tell the civilians that they ain't allowed to watch the Kardashians on TV or buy from Amazon until the war's over, and suddenly there's a lot of pressure on their government to wind things up fast.

Really, History has shown that you don't Beat Empires in the conventional sense. You win by not making it fight you. Empires don't really like hard wars - they're expensive. So you wait for it to get bored. You keep tapping away, year after year - even as their government talks about making progress and staying the course - continuously proving over and over again that really, it's all just lies. Things get worse and worse as they get harder and harder and crack down further and further. The bodies keep coming back drapped in flags, over and over again. Eventually, it moves to the point where their own people turn against the crackdowns. It's all about waiting for public opinion to finally turn against the war, and being very careful to not do anything drastic that'll make it turn back.

Look at the Irish War of Independance. 1916 failed because it tried to be a conventional military action, and Britain stomped it flat because they were geared up to do exactly that - in the middle of a World War no less. The campaign that followed in 1919 worked for two years until DeValera decided on a conventional attack on the Custom's house - which almost broke the old IRA. Eventually, England just got bored with it trying to swat it down cheaply and failing, while English public opinion turned hard against the Tans and they needed a way out that saved them face - offering the choice between a truce and negotiations, or expensive, all-out actual total war.

It won't be short. It won't be decisive. It will be messy. It will leave a legacy of bad blood lasting decades.

But that's how you beat Empires. Not with a bunch to the face, but a hundred thousand gentle pokes.

Of course, all that's moot if someone has well and truly awoken the sleeping giant and kicked him square in the bollocks. In which case, the only way we'll win is to be in a position to dictate terms in the White House after 6 months. Getting there means rapidly crippling their ability to outbuild. We can do one thing Germany or Japan couldn't - we can hit them at home. But that's not a war I'd want to fight and a lot of people would feel the same. And it's hard to win a war you don't really want to fight. The Boskone war was almost easier that way.

---

From: "ValkyriesRide2012"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

I'd wonder if there isn't a way to get Russia or China to fight that battle for us?

Slap Russia in the face while wearing the Stars and Stripes. A 'warning' not to get involved in an 'American' conflict.

Too Risky?

Really, there's no way we can fight them on our own. The trick being not to get caught because nothing would piss them off more.

-----
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[JakeGrey]

From: "Old Man Tom"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: Re: Worst Case Scenario

> It'll rapidly get harder to get food up here for a start. We'll have to rely on native production. I don't know what stage we're at with that but maybe, just maybe, we could do it. But, right now, it wouldn't take much, if anything, for them to cripple that ability to the point where people start going hungry, and it won't be impossible for them to make getting anything off Earth a lot harder. They won't have to fire a shot to do it, or launch a single battlewagon. They just have to make dealing with us very expensive for the few people that still will. Which means prioritising some settlements over others when there isn't enough to go around. Those will be our weak points.

And their weak point is their inability to prevent us from dropping asteroids on their population centres in retaliation, and if they backed us into a corner like that then that's exactly what would end up happening. And we'd probably have international law on our side if we did, because I cannot see how using famine as a weapon of war could be interpreted as anything but the deliberate targeting of noncombatants. The United Nations takes a bit of a dim view of that...

[ECSNorway]

From: Greentrees
To: soc.fen.military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

"Old Man Tom" wrote:
> And their weak point is their inability to prevent us from dropping asteroids on their population centres in retaliation,
> and if they backed us into a corner like that then that's exactly what would end up happening. And we'd probably have
> international law on our side if we did, because I cannot see how using famine as a weapon of war could be interpreted
> as anything but the deliberate targeting of noncombatants. The United Nations takes a bit of a dim view of that...

First off? "Dropping rocks on them" only works when they can't attack your rock-droppers effectively.

If you really think they can't do that, you have not been paying attention at all.

Remember: The USN and USAF are already up here.

Just because Tom Dodge and Steve Caldwell have been playing fair by us so far and being good neighbors does not mean that they will stay that way if we start dropping shit on American cities. And if you think either of them doesn't already have the launch button that requires two keys to turn, you are completely and utterly out of your mind.

The first thing that will happen the moment anyone starts dropping rocks is that anything doing so will cease to exist. Doesn't matter if it's Random Satellite Number Forty-Six Point Three, or Stellvia. It goes away. Immediately.

Secondly, the US is well aware of the public-relations impact that denying a community access to food will create. And they are very unlikely to be willing to accept that cost. Even Iraq under Hussein, during the worst of the embargo when we were trying to get him to cough up his WMD programs, was allowed to import food and other necessities. You'd have to go back to the Jackson administration to find a US president willing to open that particular can of worms.

Any real conflict between Fenspace and the US is much more likely to be subtler and less obvious than either of these. There will be no direct attacks, no threats. It will take place at the diplomatic negotiating table, and in the halls and forums of our own discussions, and be primarily prosecuted by three-letter agencies. Do not expect it to be like the Boskone War, any conventional guerilla war, or any of Heinlein's or any other writer's novels. It will be something new and shadowy and will probably be over before the general populace realizes it's even gotten serious.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[JakeGrey]

From: "Old Man Tom"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: Re: Worst Case Scenario

Stingray is one vessel, and Ben Franklin Station is one outpost. In the event of open hostilities like in this particular hypothetical... Well, I'm not going into detail in a public venue, but I know for a fact that the question of how to neutralise them both has been considered in detail.

You're right, though, the whole idea is thouroughly implausible; even if the US elected someone mad enough to start a war with Fenspace or anyone else just for the hell of it, not even the scorched-earth contingent the Republicans are trying to get rid of only want to beat up countries too small and poor to fight back.

[Dartz]

From: "WeOurselves"
To. Soc.Fen.Military
SubjL RE: Worst case scenario

We wargamed against Stingray once just after the war and it was a learning experience (Especially when we exchanged a few people. DBF!). Don't underestimate them. They knew our tactics inside out - all the stuff we'd learned during the Boskon War. It frightened Ray something fierce and really informed our last refit. I guarantee they have, in some dusty office somewhere, a 'what if' scenario for just such an occasion. That's how they work.

An accident with a rock. Halliburton or Lockheed's profit forecasts dropping. Oil pricing going funny again. An arch-duke congressman's relative from some backwater getting shot for being an ass on Phobos. Wars find funny ways of starting themselves when the wealthy need them to. Especially if it starts lookin like we're harming their interests rather than helping.

Right now, and I heard this from the horses mouth, it's currently in the US interest to have us floating around up here and reasonably capable of looking after ourselves. Probably because at least we're effectively keeping China out. They didn't get called in as the legitimate White Knight like they really wanted, but they'll settle for this instead.

But really, these countries are like Cthulhu right now. Best not riled. The most dangerous thing we can do is overestimate how strong we are, or underestimate them.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[M Fnord]

From: "The All-Seeing Eye"
To: soc.fen.military
Subj: Re: Worst case scenario

Well isn't this a cheerful topic!

So I'm a little confused: are we talking about the Americans going to war against the Convention, or are we talking about *Earth* going to war against the Convention? Because these are two very very different things. The United States is not the world, nor does it exist in a vacuum.

If the United States in a fit of madness decides to lock us out of their clubhouse, this isn't the end of the world. Because, you know, the *rest of the planet* is still there and reasonably accomodating. If anything, I'd expect an American freeze to be accompanied by a Chinese thaw: they may not like us especially, but the opportunity to sphere Fenspace isn't something the PRC would pass up. If we lose American investment well, that's sad but we still have strong trade links to Europe, North Africa, Japan, Korea, SE Asia, and South America. We might lose some of that to American bullying, but after the last two decades or so of ham-handed US "diplomacy" I'd expect that number to be smaller than you might think. All in all, even if the US were to say "we don't like you!" we're in a secure enough position to say "sure thing, on you go then."

Now, if everybody on Earth declared vendetta that would be a different kettle of fish entirely. We're not fully self-sufficient yet--we're close, another half-decade or so and we might we solid--and we need the industrial capacity for a lot of finished goods. If needs be we could abandon the system and just fade, there's plenty of places to hide that the Danelaw wouldn't think of looking in. It wouldn't be fun by any stretch of the imagination, but we could do it.

> I guarantee they have, in some dusty office somewhere, a 'what if' scenario for just such an occasion. That's how they work.

For fuck's sake of *course* they do! They're a *government,* planning for the unlikely and outrageous is part of what they're supposed to do. Google War Plan Red if you want some entertaining reading on the subject.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Proginoskes]

From: "SingularCherubim"
Newsgroups: soc.fen.military
References: ,
Subject: RE: Worst Case Scenario

How easily can any single nation, even one as powerful as the USA, effectively embargo Fenspace? It's not like they can surround our borders; they'd have to convince the entire rest of the planet to go along with it. Granted, if the entire Really Real World actually *did* decide to cut us off, we'd be in just as much trouble as you say. And I just remembered that we're talking Worst-Case Scenarios, so of course we have to consider every 'Daneside government ganging up on the Convention.

Valkyries, if we're under attack by one 'Daneside nation, engaging in a ruse de guerre against another sounds like a *really bad idea*. Maybe we could politely ask our aggressor's traditional enemies for help, but trying to trick them is almost sure to backfire. Leaders of nations do talk to one another, these days.

[Star Ranger4]

From:"Don Juan"
Newsgroupsoc.fen.military
Subject: Re: Worst Case Scenario

Fortunately, I find myself glad that what I consider the one best option has not been mentioned.

The Boskonians. If we REALLY wanted to play dirty, OGJ would stop focusing on eliminating production of Thionite and only interdicting shipments to destinations here in Fenspace.

If we really wanted to provoke causus belli, we'd find a way to help them smuggle the stuff down the well. Or use their existing conduits to also send along any number of other assorted nastyness.

Of course, then we have become that which we fight.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[ECSNorway]

From: Greentrees
To: soc.fen.military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

"Don Juan" wrote:

> The Boskonians.

Not only no, but HELL NO.

Anyone who even thinks about seriously proposing this will find themselves at the top of my 'shoot on sight' list in the event any hostilities do break out.

And about half the rest of the Fen, as well, I'll wager.

Let's just table this idea right the frack now, okay?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Matrix Dragon]

From: "Tomboy Orion"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

I swear a bit over the American contracts I'm likely to lose, blame Mal for ticking off the US Government again (Until proven otherwise, blame the guy with the track record, right?), make sure I've got copies of all the paperwork that ids me as Australian, and probably make a few phone calls to express my displeasure. Then I get back to work, after taking bets on which of my ships runs into trouble with whatever the yanks send up.

... What? I had my action hero days. They were notably unpleasant, and as far as I'm concerned, they're done. Let the people stuck running the circus sort it all out. I'm lazy.

[robkelk]

From: "Pyrotechie"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

> Stingray is one vessel, and Ben Franklin Station is one outpost.

But not the only ones. It's easier to get a look at the VVS base on 2700 Baikonur than it is to count ships at 1625 The NORC. They may not be flying right now, but they're there.

> How easily can any single nation, even one as powerful as the USA, effectively embargo Fenspace?

The same way they embargoed Cuba for half a century - make it clear to their allies that they can do business with the Convention XOR the USA, and one market's a lot smaller than the other. It wouldn't be perfect (heck, Canada ignored a lot of the Cuba embargo and their trade with the USA didn't suffer for it), but it would cut off a lot of stuff from Earth that we can't make yet.

> The Boskonians.

Remember what I said about not wanting to give the Boskos any ideas? This is going onto that list.

K
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Star Ranger4]

From: "Don Juan"
To: Soc.Fen.Military
Subj: RE: Worst Case Scenario

> > The Boskonians

> Remember what I said about not wanting to give the Boskos any ideas? This is going onto that list.

Indeed; but it needed to be said; if only to remind ourselves of our own ideals, the reasons WHY we are up here and not down there.

There are any number of similar ideas, which would all ALSO result in a key result: We would have allowed THEM to cause us to become what they feared, and have lost our own identity in the process.

For when one fights monsters (perceived or actual) one must be careful NOT to become that which one fights.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children