-SPOILER- Uncompromising Honor - Likes and Don't Likes

pappilon wrote:Its always messy, and like the EU no state that has been independent for any while wants to cede its power to some other government. Question remains, with 8th fleet being the battle armor fist in the leather glove, can they not pass something? Can they pass articles of dissolution, everybody go their own way and Honor sign off on it? IIRC Honor says pass something, anything, or I start blowing up orbital infrastructures.

I suppose reasonable persons can reasonably argue ... Sounds like a dangerous game.

Why does the league need to tax now? The war is over, they can go back to the old way of simply taxing trade. It won't provide nearly as much as they want but their needs are now a lot smaller--no need for a big battle fleet to intimidate protectorates.

Loren Pechtel wrote:Why does the league need to tax now? The war is over, they can go back to the old way of simply taxing trade. It won't provide nearly as much as they want but their needs are now a lot smaller--no need for a big battle fleet to intimidate protectorates.

Uh, what? So they should just depend on the good will of every other state not to cut them up for parts? Tht's nuts.

There was no way to address what would happen for things like reparations in the book.

The probablilty that the OFS Govenors are going to get ridden out of their systems on rails...if they survive --the probable independence of their former satrapies is likely. That the former OFS protectorates want to be in the New League is another open question, but, given they are not going to have OFS sitting on them (it is to disband NOW) and SLN is to stay the hell away is going to encourage them to both become independent, make their own agreements (with transtellars, neighbors, GA etc) will lead to all sorts of changes.

This is that massive period of change and realignment that was bound to come when the League shattered.
The pages are blank, the story can evolve.
Some, like Meyers, may recover their old system and proceed, others, who knows.

Brigade XO wrote:Some, like Meyers, may recover their old system and proceed, others, who knows.

FWIW, "The Kingdom of Meyers" wasn't even the planetary government before OFS stepped in. They weren't even significant enough to crush. That's why the King of Meyers survived to be the only functional government remaining after the RMN arrived.

The Kingdom of Meyers look to go from planetary minority to ruling monarchy of a multi-system star nation; hardly "recover the old system."

It's not clear that the League will shatter. Honor's clean knockout of the federal government that keeps the member systems largely untouched may allow he League to remain largely intact. They will love their grip on the Protectorates and some Shelly systems, but the Core Worlds may just stick it out with the reformed Constitution. Depending on just how big the rump League ends up, they may pose a serious problem for the RFs hopes to collect all those star systems look for a safe port in the wake of a shattered League.

So how will the MAlign play this? The major parties know their covert game and will try hard to combat further attempts to pit star systems against each other. The RF can either opt out of the League and recruit from the Protectorates, Verge and Fringe or they can remain in the New League with hopes of controlling it. The RF may actually split and do both. I don't see either or king well.

The GA's reputation hasn't been sufficiently blackened beyond the League member systems. The League will have had its Renaissance without the RF contributing Jack spit to the rebirth. The GA was the stern midwife to the new constitution. Too many of the New League's membership will view the results of the war in that light.

The best chance the MAlign has will be to encourage as many member systems to opt out of the New League. That will allow the RF to recruit them. None of the covert encouragement will be traced back to the RF, who will wear the mantle of true moral governance. I doubt this will work nearly as well as a more thorough shattering of the League.

When next we visit the Honorverse, I doubt there will be more than 5 alliance groups. I see the GA, RF, New League and two other groups of systems that want nothing to do with the New League or anything the GA midwifed into being. They will also be far enough away from the RF to find no advantage in joining them directly.

Brigade XO wrote:There was no way to address what would happen for things like reparations in the book.

The probablilty that the OFS Govenors are going to get ridden out of their systems on rails...if they survive --the probable independence of their former satrapies is likely. That the former OFS protectorates want to be in the New League is another open question, but, given they are not going to have OFS sitting on them (it is to disband NOW) and SLN is to stay the hell away is going to encourage them to both become independent, make their own agreements (with transtellars, neighbors, GA etc) will lead to all sorts of changes.

This is that massive period of change and realignment that was bound to come when the League shattered.
The pages are blank, the story can evolve.
Some, like Meyers, may recover their old system and proceed, others, who knows.

Loren Pechtel wrote:
Why does the league need to tax now? The war is over, they can go back to the old way of simply taxing trade. It won't provide nearly as much as they want but their needs are now a lot smaller--no need for a big battle fleet to intimidate protectorates.

2 problems with the SL1.0 No real federal government and no real ie sustainable revenue source which brought us to The Protectorates in the first place. The planets can opt for a levy on each member league or on each citizen.

But some system of tax revenue is just a necessity. So is a navy. So is a court system. There are functions any government must provide and it needs a secure revenue base to do it.

And yes, everyone will complain and moan that taxes are too high, that taxes prevent from getting rich enough fast enough.
Waah, waah.

Brigade XO wrote: ((Snip))This is that massive period of change and realignment that was bound to come when the League shattered.
The pages are blank, the story can evolve.
Some, like Meyers, may recover their old system and proceed, others, who knows.

The snipped part, I totally agree with, all of this is speculation. I didn't even minor in history, but the League 1,0 is rather much like the US under the AoC. I assume RFC being a history buff, well SL 2.0 May come out with a rather familiar constitution. And yes I am not wed to the idea and accept any reasonable disagreements
.
Pages are never blank, there is no tabula rasa every world will carry its own history forward, with all the feuds, quarrels and hatreds that define it, into the new Era.

PeterZ wrote:It's not clear that the League will shatter. Honor's clean knockout of the federal government that keeps the member systems largely untouched may allow he League to remain largely intact. They will lose their grip on the Protectorates and some Shell systems, but the Core Worlds may just stick it out with the reformed Constitution. Depending on just how big the rump League ends up, they may pose a serious problem for the RFs hopes to collect all those star systems look for a safe port in the wake of a shattered League.

OPINION:

The core will pretty much stay together. They created considerable animosity with the Shell. They will have to address this somehow to smooth over these issues for nuch of the Shell to remain. The Verge will pretty much go as will the protectorates. There must be a system in place for accepting worlds who wish to join the union in the future that will encourage not discourage membership.

PeterZ wrote:So how will the MAlign play this? The major parties know their covert game and will try hard to combat further attempts to pit star systems against each other. The RF can either opt out of the League and recruit from the Protectorates, Verge and Fringe or they can remain in the New League with hopes of controlling it. The RF may actually split and do both. I don't see either or king well.

With their plan pretty much in ashes, this is a good question. The SL may or may not be splintered, remains to be seen pending ratification of new constitution. The GA is definitely not destroyed. Beowulf is not alone and humbled.

OPINION: They declared independence. They are pretty much stuck with it for now. They have no seat at the convention. Of course it will take time for the Detweiller Quints to get their feet under themselves and get over their parents deaths and make new plans. Which will be running coincidentally with the convention. No need to decide that for the immediate future.

PeterZ wrote:The GA's reputation hasn't been sufficiently blackened beyond the League member systems. The League will have had its Renaissance without the RF contributing Jack spit to the rebirth. The GA was the stern midwife to the new constitution. Too many of the New League's membership will view the results of the war in that light.

Yes, but will they see the GA fleet's presence in the Sol System and the threat of punitive commercial damage as coercion? Will they resent the GA going forward?

PeterZ wrote:The best chance the MAlign has will be to encourage as many member systems to opt out of the New League. That will allow the RF to recruit them. None of the covert encouragement will be traced back to the RF, who will wear the mantle of true moral governance. I doubt this will work nearly as well as a more thorough shattering of the League.

IDK. Speculation: Leave the Core and the shell to sort its own laundry. No point trying to agitate (Talbott quadrant writ large). Agitate among the verge and protectorates. Pull your own Case Buccaneer to keep the level of uncertainty at a boil. The SLN can't respond under threat from Michelle. Which stretches the GA resources.

PeterZ wrote:When next we visit the Honorverse, I doubt there will be more than 5 alliance groups. I see the GA, RF, New League and two other groups of systems that want nothing to do with the New League or anything the GA midwifed into being. They will also be far enough away from the RF to find no advantage in joining them directly.

So Meyers/Erewhon will join the GA, and so will the Anderman Empire? No more than two more groups from the verge and protectorates will form? Or will form and coalesce into larger groups over time? Because OPINION I can see at least a dozen different factions loosely confederated into regional trading and defense unions, League 1,0 writ small.

PeterZ wrote:The probablilty that the OFS Govenors are going to get ridden out of their systems on rails...if they survive --the probable independence of their former satrapies is likely. That the former OFS protectorates want to be in the New League is another open question, but, given they are not going to have OFS sitting on them (it is to disband NOW) and SLN is to stay the hell away is going to encourage them to both become independent, make their own agreements (with transtellars, neighbors, GA etc) will lead to all sorts of changes.

Which is why I question your previous paragraph. i can see way more than 5-7 groups forming just because (I am assuming) with the core pretty much holding together, it will be far too difficult astrographically to hold the verge as one independent system. And I can't see the protectorates taking their newfound economic and political fredom and immediately bargaining it away without good reason.

PeterZ wrote:This is that massive period of change and realignment that was bound to come when the League shattered.
The pages are blank, the story can evolve.
Some, like Meyers, may recover their old system and proceed, others, who knows.

The story can evolve, but no world goes forward with a tabula rasa They were created and their societies forged by the hardships they endured and the solutions and compromises they made to survive. That will not evaporate. Nor will old grudges and feuds. All the planets have histories with other planets and those will impact future coalitions and alliances. just life.

Some of the previous post is conflated with BrigadeXO's post.

I doubt there will be dozens of alliance groups. There will be dozens of polities out there, but the number of alliance groups will be much smaller. Small alliance groups won't be able to survive the new Gustav Anderman that will emerge. The GA will only have so many ships to cover their merchies and allies. There aren't enough to police the known galaxy.

Even if every ex-Protecorate, verge, Fringe and independent Core World wants to become part of the Grand Alliance, there isn't enough hulls in the GA to secure them all. Trying to do so will turn the GA into OFS. Not going to happen. That means another conquistador will emerge who can walk the fine tight rope of conquest and tolerable governance well enough to keep the GA from visiting. I believe this because some transstellar will have enough resources to organize this effort in cooperation with a core group of star systems.

Small alliance groupings can't survive, especially with the large number of SLN BCs about to flood the market.

PeterZ wrote:Reparations are just another war debt owed by the Solarian League. Just as their war bonds are debt, their other liabilities of which reparations are one of them are also war debts. The GA can assert reparations are essential to any peace treaty. The New League will have to ratify a peace treaty with the GA. No peace treaty, no peace.

I don't see any sort of plurality of the Core Worlds denying responsibility for the SLN destroying neutral star systems as just. If they do, it opens the GA using the same principle to destroy Core World's systems with impunity. Sure it will engender bad feelings. However, what system would court that sort of destruction when they could distribute the cost of repairing the orbital infrastructure of the 6 neutral worlds between 200-300 Core worlds or 2,000 member systems.


The other issue is that any ……..loose interpretation of legitimate debts and that would put at risk the debt owned by SLN citizens and transstellars. Better to incur slightly more debts per member system and secure the value of the bonds they already own. The cost to rebuild those systems is merely 0.2%-0.3% of the average SL system's GSP. Amortize that over 50 years in a bond issuance and the annual per system cost is not that bad at all. Certainly not bad enough that a member system would court having THEIR infrastructure destroyed. Heck, building the new navy will cost far more.


No, reparations will be assessed on and paid by the new Solarian League. The consequences will not be onerous spread across the entire League and the opportunity to gain from graft and insider dealing will be too great for those SL apparatchiks to resist sticking their snouts into.

While we are on the subject of reparations, where does it stop? The OFS and the transtellars have been ripping off helpless worlds in the Verge for many years. Do those systems subject to debt peonage courtesy the OFS get reparations? That would be justice. But I'm afraid I don't see it happening.

Don

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