Fate of the Solarian League

Greentea wrote:There isn't really an Officer's Association in the SL. The closest parallel I can think of to the SL is the Ottoman Empire. When that fell, Ataturk took over. I think that growing cabal of junior intelligence officers is the closest thing their is to what you are envisioning.

It's been pretty clearly stated that the majority of the officers, and virtually all the senior officers, are from families that traditionally serve in the SLN. They will all know each other, know each others kids, have intermarried, etc.

It doesn't matter if there is a formal organization, they are all tightly connected.

kzt wrote:

Greentea wrote:There isn't really an Officer's Association in the SL. The closest parallel I can think of to the SL is the Ottoman Empire. When that fell, Ataturk took over. I think that growing cabal of junior intelligence officers is the closest thing their is to what you are envisioning.

It's been pretty clearly stated that the majority of the officers, and virtually all the senior officers, are from families that traditionally serve in the SLN. They will all know each other, know each others kids, have intermarried, etc.

It doesn't matter if there is a formal organization, they are all tightly connected.

And that informal organization is probably why there is no formal Officers Club, and going back to the start of this chain, no way for the Mandarins to insert their own crony into that organization.

Assuming this works vaguely like the modern world, I would really like to see what the retired officers are saying in their internal journals. Proceedings or the equivalent Russian or Chinese journals are where the official BS gets ripped apart.

Given the casualty levels the pressure level must be very high.

kzt wrote:Assuming this works vaguely like the modern world, I would really like to see what the retired officers are saying in their internal journals. Proceedings or the equivalent Russian or Chinese journals are where the official BS gets ripped apart.

Given the casualty levels the pressure level must be very high.

Depends on how blinkered they are. There is no reason why the retired officers attitudes should be any different than that of the still serving officers - There is probably some discussion about how stupid Byng and Crandall were, and some questions about why Filareta would have started shooting when he had been mouse trapped so neatly, but I would expect the average position to be similar to Admiral Tsang's.

kzt wrote:Assuming this works vaguely like the modern world, I would really like to see what the retired officers are saying in their internal journals. Proceedings or the equivalent Russian or Chinese journals are where the official BS gets ripped apart.

Given the casualty levels the pressure level must be very high.

That also depends on what kind of officers are retired. Given textev that they assigned flag officers to command squadrons of mothballed ships with not one crew member aboard, it's conceivable that SLN admirals barely retire at all. Why would you take pension rates if you could draw "active" pay, with a trivial difference in working hours?

So officially retired officers are likely to be criminals more appalling than Filareta, enemies of those currently in power or those who have served decades without promotion under a glass ceiling.

phillies wrote:My reference is to 1952 and the Egyptian Colonels' Coup.

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I was thinking the same as well as Kadaffi's coup in Libya; but Falls FT has a good point, Egypt and Libya are (and were) 3rd world countries (I think NYPD and LAPD each have more aircraft).

A group of Colonels (or Admirals ala Theisman) could de-capitate the Mandarins with proper planning, BUT where do you go from there.
Theisman had planned on resurrecting the old Republican Constitution and bringing in Eloise from the start.
Sol and the SL does not have a recent tradition or workable constitution they can "bring back from the dustbin"

-- Stewart

munroburton wrote:

kzt wrote:Assuming this works vaguely like the modern world, I would really like to see what the retired officers are saying in their internal journals. Proceedings or the equivalent Russian or Chinese journals are where the official BS gets ripped apart.

Given the casualty levels the pressure level must be very high.

That also depends on what kind of officers are retired. Given textev that they assigned flag officers to command squadrons of mothballed ships with not one crew member aboard, it's conceivable that SLN admirals barely retire at all. Why would you take pension rates if you could draw "active" pay, with a trivial difference in working hours?

So officially retired officers are likely to be criminals more appalling than Filareta, enemies of those currently in power or those who have served decades without promotion under a glass ceiling.

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Good points all --

The retired Admirals are likely all in government service example Ranji's nominal boss, the "official Defense Minister" is also a retired Admiral / x-CNO.
Others are likely running the various shipyards and repair facilities.
All still "in the loop" (or on the take)

-- Stewart

stewart wrote:

phillies wrote:My reference is to 1952 and the Egyptian Colonels' Coup.

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I was thinking the same as well as Kadaffi's coup in Libya; but Falls FT has a good point, Egypt and Libya are (and were) 3rd world countries (I think NYPD and LAPD each have more aircraft).

A group of Colonels (or Admirals ala Theisman) could de-capitate the Mandarins with proper planning, BUT where do you go from there.
Theisman had planned on resurrecting the old Republican Constitution and bringing in Eloise from the start.
Sol and the SL does not have a recent tradition or workable constitution they can "bring back from the dustbin"

-- Stewart

Minor nit - Theisman did not have a plan of bringing in Eloise from the start. As far as he knew at the time he shot St Just, she was an example of the worst of the People's Commissioners - St Just's fair haired girl. It was no doubt after she and Javier returned from Lovat and he learned the subterfuge that she and Javier had been playing that he would have attempted to dump the job off on her.

Would a retired Admiral running a defense contractor not have an interest in having the SLN build a new modern fleet?

Independent of whether he thinks it is a good idea, he certainly has a financial interest in advocating for it.

Hi guys first post!

The SL has ~1780 full member governments (any multi-systems members?) and about 2-300 OFS controlled systems. My guess would be that within 20 years all the OFS systems are "gone". that alone would be the greatest balkanization in human history and even if only 10% of the SL goes with it that's another 200ish new nations.

While the SL Member's all have a lot of autonomy they're still a unified economy with all the cross-connections of 700 years of open borders (Think the EU after 700 years) also while they all have their own SDF's the SLN was the real provider of security, if Battle Fleet as the front line of SL defense had the ingrained belief that they would never be actually used how bad do you think the SDF's habits are going to be?

What i would expect to see is within a generation 2-400 or possible more then a thousand new nations are going to be formed in a environment of complete economic political and military chaos. Many of the former OFS systems will become outright pirate kingdoms of some sort. even the former full members will have serious defense issues.

The great question i see most people missing (and hasn't been mentioned in the books) is where are the shipyards?
For example the US can build CVN's but only one company in a single yard can build them, if the US broke up only Newport News, Virginia can actually build them. So if/when the SL breaks up where are these new nations going to get new hardware?