[SPOILERS] Now that the war is over . . .

runsforcelery wrote:

cthia wrote:I agree with everyone else RFC, that's a lot of info squeezed into a lot of post. Thanks. I'm still digesting err chewing, then I'll attempt to digest. Thanks again.

I understand everyones sentiment, which is born from the fear the Manties had all along of a latter day plot of revenge coming from a risen League which has gotten itself back on balance. But, in the case of that beaten gorilla given/giving birth to a 1-ton-son, what can the GA feasibly do? If they attack without provocation - being fired upon - they'll appear to be bullies and their reputation is quickly squelched.

Also, since the League is now aware of a third player, don't they have a right to build up to prepare itself for the imminent return of this hidden entity? Just because the RMN can't afford to continue to build its House from steel, and has to cut corners by substituting particle board, doesn't mean the League has to.

Did the conditions of surrender include a ceiling on warships built? Hard numbers? Even for its own defense?


One thing I suspect is that the Sollies will never ignore what's going on in the Haven sector ever again, which is sort of late now that the war is over. Perhaps from now on and in the future, they'll covet every report coming in of a Manty ship engaging a pirate.

I also suspect their ONI to be targeted and gutted. Make them drop their britches and fire on them with their wedges down.

The peace terms hewed to sort of anti-Verdun Theory. No reparations, no hard ceilings on warships, full recognition of the new Constitution as soon as it's adopted, immediate reopening of the hyper bridges at prewar transit rates, etc. Certain individuals implicated in war crimes will be surrendered to the GA for trial before a joint GA-SL court(rather like Honor's approach to the SS trials on Cerberus) with full press coverage and no secret testimony or evidence. A commission of SL physicists will be invited to Haven to examine the Houdini sites to help determine how the attacks were carried out. Intelligence on the Alignment, including access to Simoes and to Jack McBryde's data chips will be shared with people like the Ghost Hunters. Anyone who wants to interview members of the "benign" Alignment on Mesa will also be encouraged to do so, and the ASL will be invited to participate in the reorganization of Mesa's politics and economy. And the GA will expressly recognize the SL's right to rebuild its military in light of the new tech systems available and the threat --- which the GA will emphasize --- of the Malignant MA . . . whether the Sollies really believe in the MMA or not.

All of this will take time, of course, and there should be room for, oh, at least one more COS novel in there before anyone in the SL starts really looking critically at the Houdini wreckage, but generally speaking, the GA will be continuing its policy of bending over backwards to ride the SL with as light a rein as possible until the new Constitution is up and running and the GA can open normal diplomatic relationships and resume mutually beneficial trade with both the SL and with the newly independent star systems which have left the SL.

Now, there are definitely going to be some hard feelings in various transtellars' HQs, but even there the smart (and least rapacious) will be busy negotiating soft landings with their erstwhile debt peons, with strong support from the GA and mutual trade and security treaties to sweeten the pot. And the truth is that the only SL star system that really took a major hit during the war was Sol itself, as opposed to what happened to quite a few other star systems under Buccaneer. This fact will be made widely known in the press during the immediate postwar period, which will underline the restraint the GA actually showed during the war --- especially when the SL's diplomatic archives and the Mandarins' internal records are opened to the public. So absent machinations by parties unknown (tum-te-tum-te-tum), the GA and the SL ought to get back to reasonably amicable relations pretty soon.

The GA is obviously showing restraint after the war too. No reparations? I don't expect the SEM to demand all of the reparations owed them, but none at all? The GA, particularly the SEM, has been letting the League off the hook from the get go, even when they were too arrogant to appreciate it. I suppose it wouldn't be fitting to hold the entire League responsible for the atrocious shenanigans of a few misfits. Or even Sol. But there's a lot of money in the League. You seen their piggybank?

The Mandarins, who are responsible for such atrocities against the SEM, have huge bank accounts themselves. At least those accounts and properties should be seized and awarded to the SEM. At the very least, the families of those destroyers should be compensated. They have a right to sue the Mandarins themselves, in a separate civil suit of murder. I suppose it is a nice consolation that after the trial they will be executed on Manticore with the bereaving families watching and popping grapes.

I don't agree with the court being a joint GA-SL court. I suppose I should at least prepare myself for the same kind of gridlock which arose in the supposedly open and shut case of Pavel Young.

Perhaps if they had a large enough debt to worry about they can't be too quick to spend it on planning more immoral and illegal acts of war. And somehow, all of the post war restraint wreaks of too much deference in my book. But then, I felt the same thing about the Harrington plan itself, which was inevitably tossed out the window -- by Harrington. However, OTOH, the miscreants who would immediately feel that the SEM is too weak to punish them are being relieved of their heads and thus their thinking. Point!

One concern I do have is whether the GA will monitor the government to make sure it doesn't default back into their same old habits of using FF as an iron fist to extort their own members and squeeze blood out of turnips.


****** *

I must admit total unfamiliarity with the Battle of Verdun. What a picturesque city after reading the wiki. This war could be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. I spent over an hour enthralled by this war.

Is there truly no end of repulsive wars on Earth.

cthia wrote:
The GA is obviously showing restraint after the war too. No reparations? I don't expect the SEM to demand all of the reparations owed them, but none at all? The GA, particularly the SEM, has been letting the League off the hook from the get go, even when they were too arrogant to appreciate it. I suppose it wouldn't be fitting to hold the entire League responsible for the atrocious shenanigans of a few misfits. Or even Sol. But there's a lot of money in the League. You seen their piggybank?

The Mandarins, who are responsible for such atrocities against the SEM, have huge bank accounts themselves. At least those accounts and properties should be seized and awarded to the SEM. At the very least, the families of those destroyers should be compensated. They have a right to sue the Mandarins themselves, in a separate civil suit of murder. I suppose it is a nice consolation that after the trial they will be executed on Manticore with the bereaving families watching and popping grapes.

I don't agree with the court being a joint GA-SL court. I suppose I should at least prepare myself for the same kind of gridlock which arose in the supposedly open and shut case of Pavel Young.

Perhaps if they had a large enough debt to worry about they can't be too quick to spend it on planning more immoral and illegal acts of war. And somehow, all of the post war restraint wreaks of too much deference in my book. But then, I felt the same thing about the Harrington plan itself, which was inevitably tossed out the window -- by Harrington. However, OTOH, the miscreants who would immediately feel that the SEM is too weak to punish them are being relieved of their heads and thus their thinking. Point!

One concern I do have is whether the GA will monitor the government to make sure it doesn't default back into their same old habits of using FF as an iron fist to extort their own members and squeeze blood out of turnips.


****** *

I must admit total unfamiliarity with the Battle of Verdun. What a picturesque city after reading the wiki. This war could be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. I spent over an hour enthralled by this war.

Is there truly no end of repulsive wars on Earth.

I'm sorry, that was supposed to be an anti-Versailles. It was late, I was using voice recognition, and I proofread what I expected to see when I misspoke.

And, no, there aren't going to be any reparation demands. Not from the Grand Alliance, anyway. That doesn't mean the places they got hammered in Buccaneer aren't going to be rebuilt on the Solarian dime, but that's a different matter. In fact, that is covered by existing Solarian law where Eridani Edict violations are concerned. The systems that were hit can (and will) bring suit in Solarian courts to recover all damages inflicted by the Solarian League Navy in the course of that series of operations. Some of those systems — like Hypatia — may have become member systems of the Star Empire of Manticore, for example, and thus be a part of the Grand Alliance. They will be bringing suit as individual star systems, however, following well-established jurisprudence in the League.

The personal fortunes of the Mandarins may, indeed, be forfeited to the Grand Alliance. That's another matter, and one that needs to be worked out between the League Department of Justice and the Grand Alliance. The imposition of massive fines to be paid to the victims of their actions would be a matter of civil liability, however.

I'm sorry you don't agree with the notion of joint courts. And I don't know why you should prepare yourself for the "same kind of gridlock which arose in the supposedly open and shut case of Pavel Young." In Pavel Young's case, the verdict was hung because of purely domestic political factionalism. This would be far more like the courts-martial on Cerberus, where there really weren't any "hung" juries. And I didn't say that the Solarian League and the Grand Alliance would have equal representation on the court. The most probable outcome is to impanel a court with representatives from each member state of the Grand Alliance; three from the Solarian League (nominated by the new League government but subject to approval by the Grand Alliance); and one from the Andermani (who were neutral) in the war between the Grand Alliance and the League. That would give us 3 Grand Alliance judges; 3 Solarian judges; and 1 Andermani judge, so there'd be no opportunity for a deadlocked judgment. The Andermani judge could be expected to be neutral but the leaning in the Grand Alliance's direction, but I can guarantee you that the Grand Alliance would be careful about overruling the 3 Sollies on a "straight party vote." Nor should they need to. Interstellar law is very clear on what constitutes a "war crime," and the only people for whom that law could be in the least ambiguous would be the Mandarins themselves, who were exercising the executive power of a sovereign star nation but were not themselves elected officeholders in that star nation's official governing structure. Again, however, Solarian law on Eridani Edict violations comes into play, and it would be flat out impossible to find 3 genuinely honest Solarian judges who wouldn't convict as soon as the evidence is laid before them.

Now, I can already hear somebody saying "But there aren't any honest Solarian judges!" In fact, there are tons of honest Solarian judges; they live in systems like Beowulf (although Beowulf itself will no longer be a Solarian system) where the system (i.e., "state") judiciaries were untainted by the corruption at the Federal level. (Remember, for example, Beowulf's attitude toward the SLN's demand to transit the Beowulf Terminus as part of Raging Justice.) One thing that needs to be borne in mind here, although I don't know that I ever specifically said so anywhere in the books, is that under the original League constitution, federal law overrode local law only in certain special, very carefully delineated areas. That was intended to protect the member systems, but, perversely, actually became a factor in the corrupting of the federal judiciary. Because the full member systems had very few dogs in the fight where federal jurisprudence was concerned, those member systems were far less vigilant about ensuring honesty and integrity at the federal level. Even with that . . . disconnect, the federal courts didn't go over to the dark side of the force overnight, of course. Remember that what we are seeing by Honor's time is the result of seven centuries of evolution, and that the end product doesn't even remotely resemble — on the federal level — what the League's founders had envisioned.

The nominating process for Solarian judges would be one in which the League can nominate whoever it wants; the Grand Alliance can reject any nominee it chooses to reject, for whatever reason; and the League gets to go on nominating until the process comes up with someone acceptable to both sides. Does anyone really think that with treecats in the room the League is going to be able to slide in someone who isn't honest and prepared to approach his/her responsibilities with both moral and intellectual integrity? And that's what the Grand Alliance wants. They don't want kangaroo courts. They don't want a judicial process which will deliver simple vengeance, no matter how satisfying that would be or how much solace the families of those killed in Beowulf or abused in the Protectorates would find in that sort of outcome. They want justice, and they want the fact that it was justice to be self-evident to anyone who later goes back and looks at the proceedings, if only for the reasons I touch on in my last two paragraphs, below.

People need to understand that the Star Kingdom of Manticore and, in particular, the House of Winton figured out a long time ago that it takes centuries to build an interstellar reputation for integrity, but that it can be destroyed by a single action. Eloise Pritchart understands that, as well, and in her case, there is a burning need to demonstrate that the resurrected Republic of Haven is not, and will never again be, the People's Republic of Haven. She understands how absolutely essential it is — both diplomatically and domestically — for the reborn Republic to live up to the ideals of the restored Péricard constitution. Not just in terms of rehabilitating it in the galaxy's eyes, but also in terms of rehabilitating itself in the eyes of its own citizens. Of giving them the opportunity to once again feel pride in its integrity and the respect for the rule of law it's displayed in dealing with such an emotionally charged set of trials. The Grand Alliance's entire stance vis-à-vis the League during the war was that it was the grown up in the room, that it was fighting not for territorial gain and not for the opportunity to extort "reparations," but in self-defense and in defense of the principle of self-determination in the Protectorates. It's absolutely true that championing self-determination in the Protectorates accomplished many vital things for the members of the Grand Alliance in both immediate "tactical" advantages during the war and long-term trading opportunities, after the war. But that didn't mean that Elizabeth Winton, Benjamin Mayhew, and Eloise Pritchart weren't genuinely committed to those ideals, if only because they recognized that in protecting that right of self-determination for others, they were protecting it for themselves and because they recognize the almost always omitted parts of the famous quote from Machiavelli: "One ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both." They are neither foolish enough to believe in some sort of galaxy wide kumbaya moment nor stupid enough to base their diplomacy and military policies on anything of the sort. But they not only have a genuine personal moral commitment to the concepts of self-determination and respect for interstellar law and the rules of war, they also recognize how enormously beneficial a reputation for that determination, solidly based on the actual defense of it even at the expense of blood and treasure, has to be in a post-Protectorate galaxy. Indeed, they only have to look at what happened after the "Mesan Atrocity" of Houdini's finale to see what it cost them to have that reputation impugned. For that matter, the difference between the SKM and the People's Republic's reputations and which of them the galaxy at large was more inclined to trust is another recent lesson in the same direction. (And, for that matter, it was the pre-Legislaturalist Republic's reputation for integrity and respect of law which made it essential for the Alignment to remove it from play as the greatest single extra-Solarian threat to the Detweiler Plan's ultimate objectives.)

So there are all manner of pragmatic, moral, and ethical reasons for the Grand Alliance to proceed as transparently, as justly, and as generously as it can in the aftermath of the war.

As for the last two points of your post, it would be really difficult to give the League "a large enough debt to worry about [that] they can't be too quick to spend it on planning more immoral and illegal acts of war." Unless the new League constitution repeats one of the fundamental errors of the old league constitution, the federal government is going to be funded by taxation, not solely by regulatory fees, and that will give it access to fiscal resources the Mandarins could only dream about. Given that, it's impossible for me to conceive of a "large enough debt" that would seriously deter a revanchist League from planning whatever acts it thought would achieve the revenge it wanted. On the other hand, it's not at all difficult for me to imagine a reprise of the Treaty of Versailles' reparations that engendered enormous resentment and humiliation on the part of Germany, which was a major factor in some rather unfortunate repercussions twenty years later. The scale would be totally different, and it's unlikely the reparations would cripple the League's economy (or help to kick off a galaxywide Great Depression), but any attempt to inflict reparations that could "cripple" the League would engender enormous resentment and hatred, with "unfortunate repercussions" of their own a few decades down the road. As Machiavelli also opined, "Never do any enemy a small injury, for they are like a snake which is half beaten and it will strike back the first chance it gets."

And about the possibility of the League "default[ing] back to their same old habits of using FF as an iron fist to extort their own members," even the Mandarins never did that, at least before they launched Buccaneer against Hypatia, at which point it could be argued that they crossed that particular red line. The Protectorates weren't members of the League, which was why the federal government (or bureaucracies, at any rate) could get away with Frontier Security's policies and actions. I've used the example of the Belgian Congo as an analogy for the League's policy towards the Protectorates, because it's a good one from both ends. From the consequences for the exploited and the total obliviousness of the citizen-in-the-street in the League's core systems. The real reason the Mandarins and their predecessors got away with the Protectorates is that the Solly-in-the-street neither knew nor cared what was happening there.

And that is what the Grand Alliance absolutely needs to drive home and make sure is never forgotten any more than the Holocaust can be forgotten by Germany and the world in general. The Allies can't make the League disappear, nor can they "punish it" into better behavior. If they are going to coexist in a galaxy which contains an interstellar polity the size of the Solarian League, then ultimately they are going to survive on a combination not only of their own ability to defend themselves but also of the League's goodwill and sense of . . . interstellar responsibility. They have to pursue a policy of enlightened self interest to help maintain that Solarian goodwill and respect for the rule of law, but they can't generate that respect by coercive policies from the outside.

Nor can they generate it by inflicting a vindictive peace rather than demonstrating how integrity and "interstellar responsibility" work.

I don't know what I was thinking. Except that I wasn't. Too severe a financial demand of reparations on the League could twist it into planets breeding a bunch of scorned Detweilers. If nothing else, Leonard should have taught us that prolong can allow grudges to grow into insane cancers. I understand.

I certainly agree that civil suits against the Mandarins' assets should go forward. That is usually the norm. What a shame the legacy they are leaving behind to their loved ones, who will undoubtedly inherit the wrath of their evil and their civil debt to boot.

Elizabeth Winton is truly worthy of her most accomplished naval officer. I wish Beth and Eloise a long friendship. Treecats involved in choosing the jury? Imagine shady lawyers having to deal with that! Your, yet another profoundly pregnant, post is worth it just for that info alone. LOL

I only worried about the trial not going smoothly because the Mandarins ruled for quite some time and I imagine they still have powerful political players in their corner, who would still benefit if they got off scot-free os simply with a slap on the wrist. Plus the fact the Mandarins have huge coffers to afford the best legal defense to escape justice by conniving, bribing and bastardizing the already compromised legal system, which has not yet, been altered. Sometimes a busted car engine still wants to run long after you turn off the ignition.

Some time ago, I stated an inner sadness about the fate of the League. It just wasn't fair for the cradle of civilization to end up with the fate originally intended it by the Harrington Plan as a result of the infamous five. I'm pleased that they have a second chance to make things right. Everyone deserves a second chance. I see a real potential in the League and a possible altruistic course for a gorilla made friendly. I'd like to see the League become a part of the GA in a future where a dark entity has emerged and is ripping the hide out of the unprepared, unsuspecting and unrepentant. It reminds me of a time a High Ridge government insisted on a build down forcing Grayson to take out second mortgages on its navy simply to support a disillusioned Manticoran government. Which of course saved their bacon. What a nice turn of events if the League proper could end up being the intrinsically good gorilla it actually is at its core -- if it weren't for the influences of a quintet of corrupted viruses and hidden nanites from within.

It simply seems intuitive; anyway I also can't imagine the MA won't try to influence the trial as much as possible. Even so, I worry that any new government will still be plagued by rickets due to an inadequate intake of vitamin Detweiler, and its associated complications, like Audrey O'Hanrahan — the ricketeer.

It seems that the League only became susceptible to this corruption as a result of the Final Wars profound effect on its government.

I worry that the internal politics of such a huge gorilla is suffering from a deeper cancer that isn't obvious until the gorilla is cut open, a time when the surgeons can see what a mess lies within and just sews the patient back up out of sheer helplessness. A question arises as to whether the League will actually get worse before a new government can get a handle on all the problems within and can also get to the root of all the hidden cancers. The truly malignant cancers.

Oh, I almost forgot RFC. All of this reminds me of the SEM having to keep troops on Masada to watch the rabid roosters in the henhouse. Now they're relegated to doing the same thing on Sol, which undoubtedly means even more of an aggressive hands-on embassorial presence.

On that note, while I've got you on the line, whatever happened to Carmichael. Shouldn't Harrington have demanded his prompt release?

cthia wrote:

SNIP
It seems that the League only became susceptible to this corruption as a result of the Final Wars profound effect on its government.

I worry that the internal politics of such a huge gorilla is suffering from a deeper cancer that isn't obvious until the gorilla is cut open, a time when the surgeons can see what a mess lies within and just sews the patient back up out of sheer helplessness. A question arises as to whether the League will actually get worse before a new government can get a handle on all the problems within and can also get to the root of all the hidden cancers. The truly malignant cancers.

One point. The League didn't even exist before the Final War. It grew out of the massive rescue effort mounted (in the years before 1170 PD) even before Adrienne Warshawski's invention of the Warshawski sail (1273 PD). This was only possible because certain routes were known to be safe from the hazards (grav waves and dimensional shear) which tended to destroy hyper-capable ships pre-Warshawski.

By following those known routes, it was possible for massive personnel and cargo moves to be made for the purposes of saving the mother world, but until that point, the risks, costs, and effort involved had far outweighed the perceived benefits of actual, routine commerce between star systems. Once the all-out effort to save Earth had been successfully mounted, it became apparent (even before Warshawski) that such commerce was not only possible, but was going to happen . . . and that warfare had just become equally possible. That was the point at which Honor's great-great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfather took the lead in creating the League.

It's also important to remember that the League constitution was written pre-Warshawski. This means that while traffic between star systems was seen as inevitable and ongoing, no one anticipated it's becoming routine routine or remotely imagined it might attain the frequency and scale it had reached by Honor's time. The reason this is an important fact to keep in mind is that it defined the scope of the problem the League was intended to address, which had a distinct bearing on the nature of the organization it was created to be. It's very, very important to remember that the League was never intended by its founders to be a government, at all. A whole bunch of the problems which later evolved stemmed from the way in which a nongovernment had been expanded by regulatory fiat to assume the responsibilities of actual governance.

runsforcelery wrote:

cthia wrote:

SNIP
It seems that the League only became susceptible to this corruption as a result of the Final Wars profound effect on its government.

I worry that the internal politics of such a huge gorilla is suffering from a deeper cancer that isn't obvious until the gorilla is cut open, a time when the surgeons can see what a mess lies within and just sews the patient back up out of sheer helplessness. A question arises as to whether the League will actually get worse before a new government can get a handle on all the problems within and can also get to the root of all the hidden cancers. The truly malignant cancers.

One point. The League didn't even exist before the Final War. It grew out of the massive rescue effort mounted (in the years before 1170 PD) even before Adrienne Warshawski's invention of the Warshawski sail (1273 PD). This was only possible because certain routes were known to be safe from the hazards (grav waves and dimensional shear) which tended to destroy hyper-capable ships pre-Warshawski.

By following those known routes, it was possible for massive personnel and cargo moves to be made for the purposes of saving the mother world, but until that point, the risks, costs, and effort involved had far outweighed the perceived benefits of actual, routine commerce between star systems. Once the all-out effort to save Earth had been successfully mounted, it became apparent (even before Warshawski) that such commerce was not only possible, but was going to happen . . . and that warfare had just become equally possible. That was the point at which Honor's great-great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfather took the lead in creating the League.

It's also important to remember that the League constitution was written pre-Warshawski. This means that while traffic between star systems was seen as inevitable and ongoing, no one anticipated it's becoming routine routine or remotely imagined it might attain the frequency and scale it had reached by Honor's time. The reason this is an important fact to keep in mind is that it defined the scope of the problem the League was intended to address, which had a distinct bearing on the nature of the organization it was created to be. It's very, very important to remember that the League was never intended by its founders to be a government, at all. A whole bunch of the problems which later evolved stemmed from the way in which a nongovernment had been expanded by regulatory fiat to assume the responsibilities of actual governance.

Thanks.

I misquoted my brain, plus the fact that abandoning the timeline in my hands is a far worse transgression than the Admiralty abandoning perfectly good officers in the hands of Elvis Santino, compounded by my being completely oblivious to some of the holes in my SL intel, which you've so graciously plugged.


Apply that sentiment to Sol's government at the time of the Final Wars, where their attention and concentration was elsewhere and appendages of its government were suffering from fear. Fear can implode lawfulness. That reality is found center stage of many Hollywood efforts. And it may be part and parcel why our own government isn't forthcoming about aliens. I withdraw that last comment, Your Honor! LOL

At any rate, I've always longed for an Honorverse novel whose setting is exclusively on Earth beginning some profound and appropriate time before the Final Wars. It causes me to recall the epic read of Spock's World, one of my most favorite sci-fi novels, ripe with politics, politricks, revolt and rebellion and the taming of a shrew. It is from whence my moniker of "cthia" hails. Which is pronounced in the Vulcan tongue as kathia.

At any rate, I can conceive of the same monumental read lurking under the hood of Old Earth's history leading up to and including the Final Wars.

Spock's World 1
Spock's World 2
Spock's World 3

A Diane Duane home run.

I can't help but putting myself into the shoes of the average Solly-in-the-street trying to come to terms with a rewritten Constitution. Take present day U.S. as a model. Could we survive a rewritten Constitution completely broken down and redone - which has to permeate into the minds of its citizens who will be ignorant of it? Those in power will exploit the ignorant and civil unrest will have a real opportunity to take hold.

I see that problem magnified in the League where so many planets have to receive, digest and accept the new Constitution. Without being exploited yet again. I'm happy that at least you see it as a smooth transition. That eases my worry a bit that the League will become an unmanageable mess. Especially with the MA exploiting loopholes and tainting the milk.

I understand that the League was never meant to be a government, but old habits die hard. At any rate, didn't the League become a government because of a real need? Someone has to police the frontier and settle disputes and problems that cannot be settled locally. What entity will replace that "governance?" Civil unrest and disagreement between planets cannot be left to the children.

cthia wrote:I can't help but putting myself into the shoes of the average Solly-in-the-street trying to come to terms with a rewritten Constitution. Take present day U.S. as a model. Could we survive a rewritten Constitution completely broken down and redone - which has to permeate into the minds of its citizens who will be ignorant of it? Those in power will exploit the ignorant and civil unrest will have a real opportunity to take hold.

I see that problem magnified in the League where so many planets have to receive, digest and accept the new Constitution. Without being exploited yet again. I'm happy that at least you see it as a smooth transition. That eases my worry a bit that the League will become an unmanageable mess. Especially with the MA exploiting loopholes and tainting the milk.

I understand that the League was never meant to be a government, but old habits die hard. At any rate, didn't the League become a government because of a real need? Someone has to police the frontier and settle disputes and problems that cannot be settled locally. What entity will replace that "governance?" Civil unrest and disagreement between planets cannot be left to the children.

The USA survived it once. We had the Articles of Confederation which didn't work. Frankly, I find them rather similar to what the Sollies had. Extremely weak federal government with no real ability to tax and derive revenue.

Do I think it could survive it again? I'm not sure. The current constitution was designed to be changed as things changed. I think a completely new system would be a hard sell.

Given the MAlign's behind the scenes machinations, I hope the courts are going to use the 'cats to vet the Mandarins' defence lawyers in addition to the judges.

Speaking as an outsider I find the reverence shown to the US Constitution by some members of the US to be puzzling. Sure it is an important document, but as circumstances change it also should change. Not easily perhaps but after due process certainly.
Most non US citizens I'm sure would find your attitude to be strange.
So as an Earth citizen I have no problem with the SOL constitution being rewritten.

ywing14 wrote:

cthia wrote:I can't help but putting myself into the shoes of the average Solly-in-the-street trying to come to terms with a rewritten Constitution. Take present day U.S. as a model. Could we survive a rewritten Constitution completely broken down and redone - which has to permeate into the minds of its citizens who will be ignorant of it? Those in power will exploit the ignorant and civil unrest will have a real opportunity to take hold.

I see that problem magnified in the League where so many planets have to receive, digest and accept the new Constitution. Without being exploited yet again. I'm happy that at least you see it as a smooth transition. That eases my worry a bit that the League will become an unmanageable mess. Especially with the MA exploiting loopholes and tainting the milk.

I understand that the League was never meant to be a government, but old habits die hard. At any rate, didn't the League become a government because of a real need? Someone has to police the frontier and settle disputes and problems that cannot be settled locally. What entity will replace that "governance?" Civil unrest and disagreement between planets cannot be left to the children.

The USA survived it once. We had the Articles of Confederation which didn't work. Frankly, I find them rather similar to what the Sollies had. Extremely weak federal government with no real ability to tax and derive revenue.

Do I think it could survive it again? I'm not sure. The current constitution was designed to be changed as things changed. I think a completely new system would be a hard sell.