Then he is clearly unfit to lead, and the time is right for you to seize power! ^_^
Thrakhath and Hobbes
- Thread starter Farbourne
- Start date
Then he is clearly unfit to lead, and the time is right for you to seize power! ^_^
You're confusing the Kilrathi with the Sith 
.
For what it's worth, I don't see how Hobbes could've betrayed anyone but Confed- he believed consciously that he was betraying the kats during SM2, but that was something Thrakhath had not only ordered him to do, but that he willingly went along with. But when the trigger was used to awaken his true self, that was when he would have had to betray SOMEONE- either the kats, by staying with confed and defying his orders of 10+ years earlier, or confed by throwing away the rank his sleeper identity had been given. Until that point he was following orders on both sides, to the detriment of the empire.
But he chose to side with the kats, and who knows? If not for Cobra, Blair might not have found out until he was locking on the T bomb with Hobbes by his side and suddenly had his wingman turn on him as all heck broke loose...
.For what it's worth, I don't see how Hobbes could've betrayed anyone but Confed- he believed consciously that he was betraying the kats during SM2, but that was something Thrakhath had not only ordered him to do, but that he willingly went along with. But when the trigger was used to awaken his true self, that was when he would have had to betray SOMEONE- either the kats, by staying with confed and defying his orders of 10+ years earlier, or confed by throwing away the rank his sleeper identity had been given. Until that point he was following orders on both sides, to the detriment of the empire.
But he chose to side with the kats, and who knows? If not for Cobra, Blair might not have found out until he was locking on the T bomb with Hobbes by his side and suddenly had his wingman turn on him as all heck broke loose...
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
That's true - and it's just as true in reality. It's precisely what World War II was all about
I don't buy this. First up, Hobbes' betrayal was far more extensive than your typical double agent. A double agent pretends to betray his own side, but avoids doing anything that would directly hurt its interests. Hobbes is different - once the overlay was in place, he was able to truly betray the Kilrathi (note the word "able" - it is entirely conceivable that Hobbes, with the overlay, would not have changed sides. Even when ordered to do so, he still wasn't happy about it), and he absolutely and honestly did everything to hurt the Empire. He wanted the Confederation to win the war.
You say that he was only a traitor as long as his Empire wished him to be. Well, that's the strangest thing of all - the impression we get is that his Empire forgot all about him. There was a time when the Empire was on the verge of defeat, and they didn't call upon Hobbes. Thrakhath only awakened him when the Confederation seemed to be just about beaten. The alternate paths in WC3 end with total defeat - even on the winning path, seconds before ultimate victory, Blair only needed to miss that one shot in order to give the Kilrathi total victory. Clearly, Hobbes was so important to the Kilrathi war plans, that they were quite content to win the war without making any use of him. You can end WC3 with Hobbes untriggered. Humanity could have lost in Fleet Action with Hobbes untriggered, too.
Incidentally, according to the Kilrathi Saga manual, Hobbes was around 15 years old when he defected. He spent 15 years serving the Confederation - that's literally half of his life.
Ultimately, during those 15 years, Hobbes was Hobbes. Ralgha literally did not exist. He had infinite opportunities to die fighting the Kilrathi as Hobbes. There were also a dozen opportunities for one side or the other to win the war with Hobbes still Hobbes. In order for Hobbes' defection to the Confederation to not be treason, we would have to be able to show that no matter what happened, he would have returned to the Kilrathi. But this, as it turns out, is very uncertain. And if his return is not a given, but actually just one, unlikely possibility, then he must be regarded as a genuine traitor, who could have lived the rest of his life out serving the Confederation.
(and as for his second betrayal... well, is there any doubt that, facing a Confed Court-Martial, he would have been convicted of treason? The complexity of his circumstances wouldn't have made a difference. You wouldn't have heard Confed judges patting Ralgha on the back for being loyal to the Empire all along)
That's true - and it's just as true in reality. It's precisely what World War II was all about
All wars really....
That's the way it had to be for him to be an effective spy. If his true personality was there the whole time there was a damn good chance he would have slipped up somewhere and Confed would have detected him. Thrakhath didn't want a rank-and-file Confederation pilot on his side he wanted a long standing decorated officer. The entire reason for the overlay was to get him to defect to Confed so they would have a man..err..Kat...on the inside when the time was right. If he didn't defect they wasted some time and resources, but if he did defect they had someone valuable on the inside.
Hobbes was always meant as a contingency plan. To be activated only when the time was right. There are only 2 reasons I can think of why Thrakhath activated Ralga when he did. 1) Spies had already informed him of Tolwyn's large compensatory mechanism and he needed someone closer on the inside to get him more information on the strengths, weak points, etc. And/or 2) He was so confident in the Kilrathi's looming victory he wanted to stick a hot poker in Blair's eye and didn't think Hobbes would be useful anymore as a double agent.
Indeed Hobbes was Hobbes. That was the point, an undetectable double agent on the inside who even gained the trust of the Heart of the Tiger. Ralga was laying dormant inside him though and he never betrayed the Kilrathi. When Ralga was reactivated the personality of Hobbes was destroyed (but the memories of what happend still remained). I believe that while Ralga nar Hallas was still completely loyal to the Kilrathi he could no longer demonize the Humans and that truly caused a conflict when he betrayed his (well...Hobbes') comrades in Confed, especially Blair. If Thrakhath was somehow killed before he could activate Hobbes then Hobbes would have most likely remained a loyal Confederation solider for the rest of his life.
Of course if Hobbes was detained before he could escape the Victory then the Court Marshall would have convicted him of treason (because as Hobbes he did swear an oath to serve the Confederation). Although if the personality overlay scenario was brought into court it might be a mitigating factor, possibly relegating him to POW status and/or life in prison. But that's all hypothetical.
Nomad Terror
Rear Admiral
Well, without his flight recorder as evidence, the court could only convict him of negligence.
Nomad Terror
Rear Admiral
Maybe Vaquero forgot to trim his nails
"Colonel, while you were gone we found and took out the REAL problem, it ends out Hobbes was an innocent bystander who flew off out of fear."
Can't be. Cobra- "made the whole story up to get you to kill him. Ends out she also hypnotized him and made him believe some pretty crazy stuff before Vaquero accidentally killed her, according to the camera. All a big misunderstanding, but I already killed Vaquero for his stupidity. You didn't kill Hobbes, right Colonel?
Colonel?"
At last, the real truth!
Can't be. Cobra- "made the whole story up to get you to kill him. Ends out she also hypnotized him and made him believe some pretty crazy stuff before Vaquero accidentally killed her, according to the camera. All a big misunderstanding, but I already killed Vaquero for his stupidity. You didn't kill Hobbes, right Colonel?
Colonel?"
At last, the real truth!
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Woah there -- the Wing Commander Armada gauntlet is all about story, complete with pirates and traitors!
It's just a text-based story like Secret Ops...We should consider:
- What information is revealed about Ralgha, both before and after? We're talking about an essentially fascist society here - was Kilrathi CNN allowed to find out that Ralgha defected in the first place, or were individual front line units in his area simply warned against killing him? Similarly, afterwards, is Thrakhath going on state-run tri-d and explaining Thrakhath's role in winning the war? If so, it would be hard to see him as anything more than a war hero involved in something controversial -- a Kilrathi Paul Tibbets. It would also be easy to see the opposite occuring... Ralgha's true mission might be hidden to preserve the counterintelligence methods involved. Knowing Kilrathi society, he might even be asked to suicide to keep that secret.
- That decided, what does Ralgha's social status mean. I'm betting you still take your hat off in the office of an unpopular President or Senator... and Ralgha is a Thrak'hra lord, the pinnacle of a leadership caste in a society that doesn't exactly support individual dissent.
Ah, but killing Kilrathi is something the Kilrathi have never had much of a problem doing. He didn't kill any of them dishonorably -- it was all combat on equal footing (in so far as he knew).
Was the Empire ever on the verge of defeat? The closest I can think is at the start of Fleet Action... but that was only the perception held by the other clan leaders. The ruling Kiranka clan knew they were building a new fleet capable of maintaining the war regardless of the transport shortage.
Similarly, I can't imagine a situation before the Behemoth and the T-Bomb that would have warranted the amount of sacrafice on the part of the Kilrathi that went into putting Hobbes into place. Activating Ralgha and learning about a particular strike carrier's fighter wing isn't the same thing as activating him once they suspect that a decade-in-development planetbuster is being prepared to strike their homeworld.
My take on Hobbes is either that he was something of an embarassment -- he ended up being such an effective tool for the Confederation that there was no 'honorable' way for Thrakhath to activate him and pay off the investment -- or he was carefully placed specifically to do what he did: stop the Confederation's expected last ditch attempt in the event of victory (after all, we know what the Emperor believes about nearly vanquished foes).
But here's a third thought: what if he *was* activated earlier? We're all treating him like a fire-and-forget weapon... but what if he was someone Thrakhath could use at his leisure? We know they were passing 'heart of the tiger' across the lines as early as 2655... and Hobbes could have had any number of lesser activations or unconscious purposes. It's a retcon someone could reasonably write.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Yes - the Wing Commander III novelization says that the KIS Sar'hrai's fighter wing was ordered to identify human fighters and not to engage Hobbes if he is present. The order was issued when the Victory arrived in the same system, so it wasn't a standing order for the entire Kilrathi military but rather something that followed Hobbes around (at least in WC3).
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
Stupid question: what exactly qualifies as a 'wing' in wing commander? We see the term used in de-briefings where a wing can be as little as two fighters. "At Nav point 1, we encountered a wing of Dralthi - they didn't survive."
We also know that entire carrier complements can be considered wings.
Real world, a wing is 3+ squadrons (for most airframe types), depending on the country in consideration. Hence the reason that, here in America, we have 'carrier air groups', comprised of squadrons originating from various wings.
Another question, along the same lines - was Halcyon considered a 'wing commander,' 'CAG,' or something else?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
In this case, wing refers to a carrier's complement. Wing Commander confuses matters by using the term to refer to both a real wing and what is now an element.
Halcyon was a Wing Commander. CAGs seem to command carriers with multiple fighter wings (Midway or Vesuvius-class).
Halcyon was a Wing Commander. CAGs seem to command carriers with multiple fighter wings (Midway or Vesuvius-class).
star_slayer
Spaceman
well Blair had some suspicions after the first mission with Hobbes in the WC3 novel. Maybe the order to not kill Hobbes was a new thing. On the other hand, maybe Blair did figure it out but stayed in denial. Perhaps the order to not kill came and went, depending on what kind of danger he was in or if he could potentially do serious damage to the cats. If they only sometimes tried to not kill him Blair would have less chance of catching on, or it could be chalked up to not wanting to kill their own kind (I know the cats have lots of civil wars but you never know what's going on in their skulls really).
Also in Wc2 Angel talks about how Hobbes is considered too "valuable" to risk on combat missions. So maybe for a long while there was no need for Thrahkath to protect him as he wasn't put in much danger. Even when you get to the Victory Hobbes isn't on the flight roster (for apparently unrelated reasons). It seems as maybe Hobbes as a fighter pilot wasn't part of the original plan but something that had to be improvised around.
lots of possibilities...
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
That's a good point -- Hobbes seems to find his way out of the cockpit when Blair isn't around.
Delance
Victory, you say?
I remember that, at the time, I found it odd that people didn't trust Hobbes to do space combat missions (where it could be an advantage to have a traitor no one can shoot at your side), but trusted him to be the second in command!
Another somewhat strange thing is that Hobbes, who was “too valuable” and a superstar on WC2, was relegated to an old, not so important carrier on WC3. I understand Tolwyn’s rather brilliant allocation of resources with the Behemoth in mind (and, eventually, the T-Bomb), but what role would Hobbes take in this plan? Having a cat on the ship you plan to escort your secret weapon that will destroy the cat’s homeworld doesn’t seem particularly insightful. Without Hobbes, Tolwyn’s Behemoth plan had a very good chance of working and ending the war without even having to resort to the T-Bomb. So I wonder if Hobbes was instrumental to the Behemoth plan in any way.
Tolwyn's whole Behemoth thing reeked of desperation towards the end. It was a last ditch maneuver- and Tolwyn knew that it wasn't fully ready at the time of deployment, but hoped for the best that the Victory would defend it to the end.
And, what, you really think the kats aren't going to notice it before you get the thing to Kilrah? Ugh. It's true that they predicted that the kats would be walking on earth in those few months, but surely there could've been some other way.
Anyone notice that after Tolwyn drops from the scene, he seems to forget about his collection of all-star pilots and we never see him ordering them around to stall the impending disaster? Paladin just comes in and doesn't seem to have ANY considerations. Perhaps because Tolwyn already knew about Paladin's position and authorized him?
And, what, you really think the kats aren't going to notice it before you get the thing to Kilrah? Ugh. It's true that they predicted that the kats would be walking on earth in those few months, but surely there could've been some other way.
Anyone notice that after Tolwyn drops from the scene, he seems to forget about his collection of all-star pilots and we never see him ordering them around to stall the impending disaster? Paladin just comes in and doesn't seem to have ANY considerations. Perhaps because Tolwyn already knew about Paladin's position and authorized him?
Mace
Vice Admiral
i think it was Cobra, who commented, very early in WC3 that the cats did not shoot to kill at him...
Ever tried to fly only with hobbes on your first three missions? eisen chews you out!
Also, as to where homeweorld comes in, Wasn't rhalga and the priestess who coverted, to tell him to go the humans(or possibly implanted the memory in his head regarding the chapter in the WC2 manual) in the betrayal born on another planet than kilrah?
Ever tried to fly only with hobbes on your first three missions? eisen chews you out!
Also, as to where homeweorld comes in, Wasn't rhalga and the priestess who coverted, to tell him to go the humans(or possibly implanted the memory in his head regarding the chapter in the WC2 manual) in the betrayal born on another planet than kilrah?