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

n7axw wrote:
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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I would believe that all the protectorates no longer have an debt - If anything the courts will find that they are owed.

Like that planet in SoV that had Pirates destroy everything in orbit, and they were forced to enter a deal with a Transtellar and OFS to rebuild - and are charged an amount they they can never pay off.

Chances are that Pirate Dan (or whatever his name was) actually wore a SLN uniform - ~95% - why else would he destroy EVERYTHING in orbit? what did he hae to really gain for being a complete jerk?

Actual value of a small transfer station, some satellites, a hydrogen farm, and an mining setup? I know the SKM is insanely rich, but it could accidentally leave the sats and the transfer station and have it be written off on a warship's budget's petty cash. OK a little exaggeration, but not much. The system insanely over paid and got a crappy interest rate.

Now that is an interesting position for the Protectorates to take. The fair market value of their Protectorate contracts compared to the fees actually charged by OFS means the SL owes them a balance. They won't nationalize transstellars' assets, but accept those as compensation for the fair market value of what was withheld from them by OFS. As the recent war with the GA proves, the SL compelled compliance with tactics like Case Buccaneer. If the transstellars have a problem with that, have them take it up with their federal government stooges at OFS. What? They no longer exist? Oh well.

Furthermore, since the Solarian League has no jurisdiction in the region of space occupied by the ex-protectorates, the Imperial Manticoran Courts will be the courts that has any hope of enforcing a judgement. That and it is the only interstellar court a local system's government will accept. The antebellum Imperial Manticoran Admiralty Court was recognized as preeminent. Accepting the Imperial Court's jurisdiction on ALL interstellar matters is pretty short hop absent the OFS.

This brings up a very interesting situation. With the fall of the Solarian League, the Manticoran Dollar is THE reserve currency. Solarian Credits have no government backing it. None of the old SL member systems have a currency. Sure, the New League will probably honor the old credits. However, will those non-League systems take that chance, if they can avoid it? Heck no! Likely the local currency markets will demand a discount for SL credits, especially in exchange for Manty Dollars.

Couple this with their re-evaluating their protectorate contracts and all sorts of legalistic games might be played. I can see pricing the contracts in Manty Dollars but those transstellars' assets in SL Credits. The book value on those assets would be in SL Credits and the base market value of shipping, finance and service charges are best estimated in Manty Dollars after all. Since there is a local exchange market, local conditions are best suited to determine an exchange rate.

In the end I seriously doubt the Protectorates will need to resort to reparations to reclaim what was stolen from them.

PeterZ wrote:Now that is an interesting position for the Protectorates to take. The fair market value of their Protectorate contracts compared to the fees actually charged by OFS means the SL owes them a balance. They won't nationalize transstellars' assets, but accept those as compensation for the fair market value of what was withheld from them by OFS. As the recent war with the GA proves, the SL compelled compliance with tactics like Case Buccaneer. If the transstellars have a problem with that, have them take it up with their federal government stooges at OFS. What? They no longer exist? Oh well.

Furthermore, since the Solarian League has no jurisdiction in the region of space occupied by the ex-protectorates, the Imperial Manticoran Courts will be the courts that has any hope of enforcing a judgement. That and it is the only interstellar court a local system's government will accept. The antebellum Imperial Manticoran Admiralty Court was recognized as preeminent. Accepting the Imperial Court's jurisdiction on ALL interstellar matters is pretty short hop absent the OFS.

This brings up a very interesting situation. With the fall of the Solarian League, the Manticoran Dollar is THE reserve currency. Solarian Credits have no government backing it. None of the old SL member systems have a currency. Sure, the New League will probably honor the old credits. However, will those non-League systems take that chance, if they can avoid it? Heck no! Likely the local currency markets will demand a discount for SL credits, especially in exchange for Manty Dollars.

Couple this with their re-evaluating their protectorate contracts and all sorts of legalistic games might be played. I can see pricing the contracts in Manty Dollars but those transstellars' assets in SL Credits. The book value on those assets would be in SL Credits and the base market value of shipping, finance and service charges are best estimated in Manty Dollars after all. Since there is a local exchange market, local conditions are best suited to determine an exchange rate.

In the end I seriously doubt the Protectorates will need to resort to reparations to reclaim what was stolen from them.

The total tab will be monstrous. For many of these systems the stealing has been going on for generations. Add the cost for one system and then multiply it by the number of systems involved. It will be hard to calculate let alone collect.

Don

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kzt wrote:

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.

Who is going to be doing the cutting? The GA isn't and the only other entity out there that could is Maya--and it's not likely the GA would let them even if they wanted to.

Maybe in the future they'll need to tax to afford an adequate military but not at present.

Loren Pechtel wrote:
Who is going to be doing the cutting? The GA isn't and the only other entity out there that could is Maya--and it's not likely the GA would let them even if they wanted to.

Maybe in the future they'll need to tax to afford an adequate military but not at present.

They know about MAlign.

More importantly they just pathetically lost a war against a benighted bunch of Neobarbs. The new League's military budget will skyrocket and many of the League's core worlds may very well build or buy a couple squads of new style SD(P)s for themselves.

The shock of being repeatedly caught with their pants down is going to have some effect - and it isn't like said worlds can't afford building fleets - Manticore's GDP was 80% of Earth's and could still afford hundreds of SDs and SD(P)s, many more lighter units and the Junction forts.

For the League 1000 SD(P)s is a necessity which they can fulfill with pocket change.

n7axw wrote:
The total tab will be monstrous. For many of these systems the stealing has been going on for generations. Add the cost for one system and then multiply it by the number of systems involved. It will be hard to calculate let alone collect.

Don
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Collecting won't the the primary goal. Justifying the "nationalizing" of assets as compensation for inadequate consideration in those service contracts will be. When the transstellars squawk about their lost assets, the ex-protectorate system whips out that good faith estimated valuation of the rights OFS gave away. The calculation doesn't have to be exact, just reasonably close using independent market values. There is no way any transstellars can claim they lost money on the lifetime of their contract even after the loss of their assets. No way that the New League will squawk too loudly either.

n7axw wrote:
The total tab will be monstrous. For many of these systems the stealing has been going on for generations. Add the cost for one system and then multiply it by the number of systems involved. It will be hard to calculate let alone collect.

Don
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PeterZ wrote:Collecting won't the the primary goal. Justifying the "nationalizing" of assets as compensation for inadequate consideration in those service contracts will be. When the transstellars squawk about their lost assets, the ex-protectorate system whips out that good faith estimated valuation of the rights OFS gave away. The calculation doesn't have to be exact, just reasonably close using independent market values. There is no way any transstellars can claim they lost money on the lifetime of their contract even after the loss of their assets. No way that the New League will squawk too loudly either.

Which one was the planet in SoV that renogiated its deal with the head of the transtellars? The crazy Polish one. There is one viable approach. What was done is done, we still need your capital to help develop our worlds and you still need profit. Now without the coercion of OFS &FF let's negotiate what a "reasonable profit" looks like. Avoids all the ugly messes, but not a particularly likely outcome on a lot of worlds.

All the OFS "management fees" are gone, there is no recovering them. Yes for transtellars refusing to renegotiate in the light of present reality, nationalization of assets is the last resort.

pappilon wrote:

n7axw wrote:
The total tab will be monstrous. For many of these systems the stealing has been going on for generations. Add the cost for one system and then multiply it by the number of systems involved. It will be hard to calculate let alone collect.

Don
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PeterZ wrote:Collecting won't the the primary goal. Justifying the "nationalizing" of assets as compensation for inadequate consideration in those service contracts will be. When the transstellars squawk about their lost assets, the ex-protectorate system whips out that good faith estimated valuation of the rights OFS gave away. The calculation doesn't have to be exact, just reasonably close using independent market values. There is no way any transstellars can claim they lost money on the lifetime of their contract even after the loss of their assets. No way that the New League will squawk too loudly either.

Which one was the planet in SoV that renogiated its deal with the head of the transtellars? The crazy Polish one. There is one viable approach. What was done is done, we still need your capital to help develop our worlds and you still need profit. Now without the coercion of OFS &FF let's negotiate what a "reasonable profit" looks like. Avoids all the ugly messes, but not a particularly likely outcome on a lot of worlds.

All the OFS "management fees" are gone, there is no recovering them. Yes for transtellars refusing to renegotiate in the light of present reality, nationalization of assets is the last resort.

I thought that was a very wise approach. I wonder how many other systems will be able to manage that. The human lust for vengeance and retribution is strong and the wise approach is too rare. As for what OFS and the translellars have stolen, it is indeed gone. You are right about that. That has really been the point all along.

Don

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So much in the way of options:)

Systems getting the OFS yoke off them may elect to go the way of the "Polish" system and renegotiate any Transtellar contracts. Of course they may not have heard about that one yet.

Those Protectorate and other systems were the government has been maintained in power by just the OFS/FF threat may have goverment change or they may continue along and renegotiate to take the cut OFS was getting.

Those that decide to throw out the Transtellars (and do something equitable about giving assets back to the locals) will have to build new relationships. There is always the potential problem that the Transtellars in question have significant local military/police presence in the system and change will be difficult.

IF the League can work out a new Constitution and after it gets mostly done with the intial wave of systems leaving the League, there could be hope for SL 2.0
They DO have a Navy, just no funding at the moment. They also DO have a Justice System- which is going to have to be cleaned up but there appear to be honest and competent people involved there. Much of the Departments (Justice etc) are going to have to be cleaned up but there is hope. There is also a really good chance that a lot of the Alignment plants are going to get killed by their anti-tampering nannies and a layer or two out from them is going to get tracked down and at least removed from the positions.
The SLN is still massive just not up to tech quality and about to (probably) go through both a massive reorganization and house-cleaning. That will help.

It is possible the League will make it in a smaller and hopefully cleaner version. That would be a good thing if the indemic corruption can be rooted out. We shall see.

I believe the system was the Czech descended Chetobor. In keeping with Czechoslovakia's peaceful separation into Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Chetobor managed their own peaceful landing.


Bearing that situation in mind, I believe that the GA will be using such successes as examples for the near by systems to emulate. The Kingdom of Meyers will likely become some sort of central Imperial political hub for nearby ex-Protectorates and Chetobor will function as a similar example for their neighborhood. The probable diplomatic strategy would be to encourage regional alliances/organizations to fix their local problems themselves. The GA may participate for larger issues, but the preferrence is for these systems to solve their own problems.


Such systems will be easier to accept into the GA, once they have settled most of their purely local issues. The same is true for any economic relationship with GA nations and their private corporations. The hub system will hold the economic envoy for the region as well as agents for the large SEM/Andy/Grayson/Havenite businesses. That envoy can communicate just how comforting to private investors find investing in systems that can find a peaceful resolution to the problems attendent with OFS' activities for the past many centuries. Such proof of a mature interstellar outlook bodes well for any investments brought into the star nation.