The Grand Alliance Grand Attack

Each time they mess with the verge systems bound to the league, they hammer the transtelas. They in turn hammer the miilitary, I totally see some forces encouraged by their corparte backers into acting against the alliance, even when ordered not to. The collapse of transtelars will harm the league economy. The league gets money for its fleet out of their business deals.
There was this sci fi story about a highly advanced military, that was corrpted by the corparations, that instead of aiming to fix the military or government issues in a campaign, they were forced to prioritise the protection of the commercial system. this can easily be turned against the enemy. it is simply using the corruption of the system against them.

namelessfly wrote:

n7axw wrote:I have been wondering how this will work out myself. There is a strong percentage of these OFS run systems who no longer have the political framework for self governance to fall back on once Sollies are kicked out. To leave such a system unoccupied would leave a vacuum for chaos, civil war or the return of OFS.

In Shadow of Freedom Mike Henke reflects on this without having a solution that doesn't include garrisoning these worlds.

Don

This is what I am thinking. Meyers seems to have the capacity for self governance. However; Mobius and other planets seem to have become OFS protectorates because they were incapable of self governance and were having a civil war. The RMN might prefertobelieve that liberating these planets from the OFS will result in peace breaking out, but it seems more plausible that theynwill turn out like Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the successful efforts by the US to export democracy after WW-2 to Germany and Japan required long teem occupation. The spectre of the US abandoning Germany to Russia deterred an evolving insurgency and actually motivated former SS and Gestapo officials to help suppress violent descent. Japan was a dangerous place for US troops off base until the Korean War inspired the Japanese to consider the prospect of being invaded by China and/or Korea not to mention Russia.

Even if liberated planetscan govern themselves, they will require at least some naval forces to protect them from SLN reprisals or piracy. The SLN is no longer a credible enforcer of the EE (which they seem to be a violator of). How long until some planet gets smashed.

Let's consider the context of these events.

When the series started 20-some years ago Honorverse time, Darius was colonized, the MAlign had the SEM set up to get crushed by Haven, the Renaissance Factor was in place to take advantage of the coming chaos and the Solarian League was encouraged to act like pigs eating at an eternally full tough. The SLN was kept fat and dumb thinking they were the lords of creation with the power of life and death over any neo-barb star nation in existence.

This was the context from which the MAlign planned their galactic take over. The RF was put in place to offer guidance to the Verge, Protectorates and select Core Worlds in the aftermatch of a galactic melt down. That melt down would be precipitated by the Verge going Nova.

The question is did the MAlign plan to have every Verge system to fall into anarchy or to have some beacons of hope and stability to use and build upon?

I suspect that more than a few systems could be salvaged as bastions of stability to rebuild from. If the MAlign planned to have the RF take advantage of that chaos, it could just as easily plan to have some systems remain stable enough to act as the stable regional bastions. That's what I anticipate will be the case. There will be more Meyers scattered about the region to act as an example to the rebelling systems fighting to regain their freedom.

There will be more than a few complete basket cases out there. Those systems will be better off with whatever corrupt government is in place. Mike will have to make that judgement call when she runs into it.

The tricky part will be how to manage those system in between. Where the systems government cannot survive without OFS support, but the rebels aren't unified enough to govern. In some cases gunship diplomacy and the promise economic support will be sufficient at stabilizing the situation. In others, the systems will try to stabilize but end up chaotic without direct occupation.

I believe that a wise allocation of resources will allow the Mike and Baroness Medusa to sift through the mess and salvage more than half the star systems around Mesa and the Talbot Quadrant. If they caught Firebrand, they could avoid commiting too many resources to the least obvious unsalvageable systems and identify the true nightmares well before a ship gets in system.

Whether Mike realizes it or not the MAlign has done much of her prep work for restoring peace. Her moral courage in providing the support the MAlign promissed has set her on the road to taking advantage of that set-up work.

n7axw wrote:I have been wondering how this will work out myself. There is a strong percentage of these OFS run systems who no longer have the political framework for self governance to fall back on once Sollies are kicked out. To leave such a system unoccupied would leave a vacuum for chaos, civil war or the return of OFS.

In Shadow of Freedom Mike Henke reflects on this without having a solution that doesn't include garrisoning these worlds.

Don

namelessfly wrote:This is what I am thinking. Meyers seems to have the capacity for self governance. However; Mobius and other planets seem to have become OFS protectorates because they were incapable of self governance and were having a civil war. The RMN might prefertobelieve that liberating these planets from the OFS will result in peace breaking out, but it seems more plausible that theynwill turn out like Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the successful efforts by the US to export democracy after WW-2 to Germany and Japan required long teem occupation. The spectre of the US abandoning Germany to Russia deterred an evolving insurgency and actually motivated former SS and Gestapo officials to help suppress violent descent. Japan was a dangerous place for US troops off base until the Korean War inspired the Japanese to consider the prospect of being invaded by China and/or Korea not to mention Russia.

Even if liberated planetscan govern themselves, they will require at least some naval forces to protect them from SLN reprisals or piracy. The SLN is no longer a credible enforcer of the EE (which they seem to be a violator of). How long until some planet gets smashed.

PeterZ wrote:Let's consider the context of these events.

When the series started 20-some years ago Honorverse time, Darius was colonized, the MAlign had the SEM set up to get crushed by Haven, the Renaissance Factor was in place to take advantage of the coming chaos and the Solarian League was encouraged to act like pigs eating at an eternally full tough. The SLN was kept fat and dumb thinking they were the lords of creation with the power of life and death over any neo-barb star nation in existence.

This was the context from which the MAlign planned their galactic take over. The RF was put in place to offer guidance to the Verge, Protectorates and select Core Worlds in the aftermatch of a galactic melt down. That melt down would be precipitated by the Verge going Nova.

The question is did the MAlign plan to have every Verge system to fall into anarchy or to have some beacons of hope and stability to use and build upon?

I suspect that more than a few systems could be salvaged as bastions of stability to rebuild from. If the MAlign planned to have the RF take advantage of that chaos, it could just as easily plan to have some systems remain stable enough to act as the stable regional bastions. That's what I anticipate will be the case. There will be more Meyers scattered about the region to act as an example to the rebelling systems fighting to regain their freedom.

There will be more than a few complete basket cases out there. Those systems will be better off with whatever corrupt government is in place. Mike will have to make that judgement call when she runs into it.

The tricky part will be how to manage those system in between. Where the systems government cannot survive without OFS support, but the rebels aren't unified enough to govern. In some cases gunship diplomacy and the promise economic support will be sufficient at stabilizing the situation. In others, the systems will try to stabilize but end up chaotic without direct occupation.

I believe that a wise allocation of resources will allow the Mike and Baroness Medusa to sift through the mess and salvage more than half the star systems around Mesa and the Talbot Quadrant. If they caught Firebrand, they could avoid commiting too many resources to the least obvious unsalvageable systems and identify the true nightmares well before a ship gets in system.

Whether Mike realizes it or not the MAlign has done much of her prep work for restoring peace. Her moral courage in providing the support the MAlign promissed has set her on the road to taking advantage of that set-up work.

The ships are already headed toward all of the Madras Sector planets. Admiral Henke sent off a lot of her light combatants at the same time she headed to Mesa. There is no time to consult with Baroness Medusa.

We don't know where any of the Renaissance Factor planets are; the only one we have a clue to is Visigoth, so I have no idea whether they'd planned on having some non-RF planets as coalescence points.

I am not sure that the MAlign has done Mike any favors. It appears to me that the GA has been set up by Mr. Firebrand to assist these liberation movements or have a tarnished reputation. If GA accepts as a moral responsibility to be a peace keeper when the locals can't get along, it will turn out to be resourse hog that turns into a real tar baby.

The only alternative I see is to get rid of OFS and offer locals honest arbitration but otherwise insist that said locals accept responsibility for resolving their own issues, understanding the risk that it could occasionally turn bloody. Can't be St John the Rescuer for everybody in all situations.

Don