[Spoilers] The Missing scene?

PeterZ wrote:[
Hasn't the grand Alliance done that already? Their partnership in the Mayan sector asserted both a minor threat to local despots and minor recognition of local rebellious dissidents. If local dissidents petition the GA for assistance, the GA would help in brokering a peaceful settlement to the dispute. They would not foment violence, but would also not tolerate violent repression by local governments. The GA would force FF and OFS to stay out.

To a large extent, the GA is demanding Verge and Fringe worlds to become the adults OFS have tried to keep as institutionalized children living in the group home overbearing foster parents. The GA is THE example of overcoming violent differences to reach peaceful reconciliation.

Based on the old maps, the verge and protectorates form basically a hollow sphere 500 LY in diameter and 100 LY deep. Which produces a volume of 51,312,800 cubic light years to patrol.

Versus say the entire Silesian Confederacy, which is somewhere around 500,000 cubic LY. Or about 100 times smaller, and much closer to Manticore. The far side of the protectorates are a very long way from Manticore. Or Haven.

So I tend to suspect this won't just all work out.

kzt wrote:

PeterZ wrote:[
Hasn't the grand Alliance done that already? Their partnership in the Mayan sector asserted both a minor threat to local despots and minor recognition of local rebellious dissidents. If local dissidents petition the GA for assistance, the GA would help in brokering a peaceful settlement to the dispute. They would not foment violence, but would also not tolerate violent repression by local governments. The GA would force FF and OFS to stay out.

To a large extent, the GA is demanding Verge and Fringe worlds to become the adults OFS have tried to keep as institutionalized children living in the group home overbearing foster parents. The GA is THE example of overcoming violent differences to reach peaceful reconciliation.

Based on the old maps, the verge and protectorates form basically a hollow sphere 500 LY in diameter and 100 LY deep. Which produces a volume of 51,312,800 cubic light years to patrol.

Versus say the entire Silesian Confederacy, which is somewhere around 500,000 cubic LY. Or about 100 times smaller, and much closer to Manticore. The far side of the protectorates are a very long way from Manticore. Or Haven.

So I tend to suspect this won't just all work out.

Not the entire Verge, no. I suspect the majority of Verge worlds aren't ruled by either domestic or OFS backed despots. Those that are may be given some attention. Certainly the GA can address the Protectorates. Again not completely, but the most egregious abusers to begin with and rest over time. The presence of the GA and absence of OFS will cause serious consideration of internal reforms. The Protectorates would have a big incentive to nationalize their transstellars overlord's holdings since FF no longer threatens them.

kzt wrote:Based on the old maps, the verge and protectorates form basically a hollow sphere 500 LY in diameter and 100 LY deep. Which produces a volume of 51,312,800 cubic light years to patrol.

Versus say the entire Silesian Confederacy, which is somewhere around 500,000 cubic LY. Or about 100 times smaller, and much closer to Manticore. The far side of the protectorates are a very long way from Manticore. Or Haven.

So I tend to suspect this won't just all work out.

That still means there's a lot of places where the GA can act directly. Indirectly even the farthest protectorates may benefit from the League shaping up - sure some governments will continue being repressive but increased scrutiny and decreased transtellar influence should clean up the worst fiefdoms. At the very least League officials are going to be less likely to risk their jobs by aiding the repression.

Slneezy wrote:
That still means there's a lot of places where the GA can act directly. Indirectly even the farthest protectorates may benefit from the League shaping up - sure some governments will continue being repressive but increased scrutiny and decreased transtellar influence should clean up the worst fiefdoms. At the very least League officials are going to be less likely to risk their jobs by aiding the repression.

Remember the note about how one world got raided by pirates who stole everything including the orbital power sats, and that was how OFS was sort of welcomed? Also remember the begging notes about the disruption and wars?

All of this may be challenging, but perhaps it's not completely unmanagable. Here are some thoughts as to how it might be done.

Manticore doesn't have the resourses to police the whole Verge, nor should it try to do that. But it can and probably will protect its own commerse. In the interest of doing that, inspite of the talk of building the navy down, it will instead have to build up its lighter units, say, from the nikes on down.

Encourage regional alliances in the Verge to discourage the bad actors and curb piracy. Manticore combined with Haven will have enough yard capacity to provide hardware to such alliances in the interest of establshing order.

Encourage industrialization and education in the Verge both to improve standards of living and having these people generate the capacity to defend themselves.

Accept from the start that the GA can't do everything and be smart in prioritizing to get the maximim effect out of what you sctually choose to do.

Focus on that part of the Verge and the shell most vital to GA interests rather than over commiting in areas where vital inerests do not exist.

Don

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One scene I was surprised that wasn't included in one of the last couple of HH Verse novels was the unmasking of Tony Nesbit as an MA operative of some sort. I would have loved to have seen Eloise reaction to that revelation. On the fun side - he must be sweating bullets now with all the Treecats around Ah blissful thought.

HawkEye7704 wrote:One scene I was surprised that wasn't included in one of the last couple of HH Verse novels was the unmasking of Tony Nesbit as an MA operative of some sort. I would have loved to have seen Eloise reaction to that revelation. On the fun side - he must be sweating bullets now with all the Treecats around Ah blissful thought.

Oh that would be a delicious scene to read.

HawkEye7704 wrote:One scene I was surprised that wasn't included in one of the last couple of HH Verse novels was the unmasking of Tony Nesbit as an MA operative of some sort. I would have loved to have seen Eloise reaction to that revelation. On the fun side - he must be sweating bullets now with all the Treecats around Ah blissful thought.

That would be Jean-Claude Nesbitt not Tony and I agree. I was sort of hoping to see the scene where he met Lesley Montrose's new bodyguard. Would he keel over like Gweon?

To Don's point, there is huge potential for industrial capacity geared to supplying military hardware to the Protectorates. Chachalot comes to mind. They lost their industrial infrastructure but not their trained personnel. The same is true for the other independent star nations Buccaneer rolled through. Those systems are likely going to be eager to join the GA. They will also be eager to send their trained personnel wherever they are needed to expedite rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure for Beowulf, the SEM and other Alliance members.

As I recall Beowulf lost their missile production centers but not the sites supporting the rebuilding of the SEM industrial capacity. The increased number of trained industrial workers will expedite the expansion of that site by Beowulf's moon. Those trained personnel would also be invaluable in training the RoH personnel working outside of Bolthole. This doesn't begin to cover what a ttraining cadre of Core world industrial workers from those 6 independent systems will do for the Quadrant. I suspect there will be more systems from the Core who will honestly want to help Beowulf and the other devastated systems.

The dissolution of OFS will result in many star nations buying arms. That means exports from industrial worlds both within the League and outside. The transstellars will have lost loads of Protectorate based infrastructure and will want to make up the lost revenues. Many of those transstellars will need Havenite or Manty partners to get in the door of any world outside the League, but hey business is business. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the SEM issued Imperial bonds to help fund the naval buildup outside the League. Meaning the SEM issues the bonds, but lend out to those deserving systems who want to finance their naval investment. The Crown would charge a modest facilitation fee.

PeterZ wrote:To Don's point, there is huge potential for industrial capacity geared to supplying military hardware to the Protectorates. Chachalot comes to mind. They lost their industrial infrastructure but not their trained personnel. The same is true for the other independent star nations Buccaneer rolled through. Those systems are likely going to be eager to join the GA.

Sure, if Manticore wants to offer no-cost protection to a thousand systems I'm sure they would take it. All they need to do is to quintuple the size of the RMN, and raise taxes massively.

Sounds like a good deal to me.