Honorverse ramblings and musings

The League's command structure makes it hard to determine WTFery is going on there, and just who is allowing it to. There simply doesn't seem to be any checks and balances in the League's government. Well, plenty of checks, which are being cashed and deposited by the Mandarins, but certainly no balances.

None of the Mandarins ever stood for election, but they represented the true government, thus says textev. Why is there never an election? How did they ever get to be permanent? What kind of government on Sol would ever think to do such a thing? "Tenure" at universities can be a very bad thing.

Who is the most powerful of the Quintet? Is it Kolokoltsov, because he is the de facto coordinator? His resume says he is sort of first among equals.

I thought I read somewhere that there was a President of the League, which is odd because there is a Prime Minister. If there is a President, what kind of powers does he wield?

Research yields that the Prime Minister was the head of government and chairman of the cabinet of ministers in the Solarian League. In 1920 PD, Shona Gyulay held the office.

Rajani Rajampet: Officially he was Minister of Defense Taketomo Kunimichi's deputy, but Kunimichi's real command authority was sharply circumscribed and Admiral Rajampet was the de facto Defense Minister. In addition, he was a quasi-member of the so-called Quintet of senior bureaucrats who controlled League policy, at least regarding military matters. His lack of full-fledged membership among that group was a source of constant irritation to him. He held his last space-going command before 1871 PD.

Why hasn't Rajani been replaced? Can someone holding a position resign?

And why was Kunimichi's real command authority circumcised? LOL

Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Little wonder generational agents of the Malign can infiltrate power structures that stagnate, remaining the same for decades. If positions were to change like they should, then it would be a lot more difficult for people to succumb to bribes and recruitment of a foreign camp. But then, the League would know that, so why on Earth would the League subject itself to such a stupid command structure? It isn't like their history is unfamiliar with the notion of checks and balances.

"Quintet" was the unofficial name given to a group of five senior bureaucratic officials of the Solarian League who, due to the power of the bureaucracies they served and the limited powers of the representative and political bodies, were the League's real policymakers.

Around 1920 PD, the members of the Quintet and their offices were:

Malachai Abruzzi — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Education and Information

Innokentiy Kolokoltsov — Permanent Senior Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs

Nathan MacArtney — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Interior

Omosupe Quartermain — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Commerce

Agatá Wodoslawski — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Treasury

In situations where large-scale military force was required, SLN Chief of Naval Operations Rajampet Rajani would serve as an "unofficial" sixth member of the cabal.

In many respects the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs usually served as the group's de facto coordinator.

cthia wrote:Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Eh, if you assume the political appointees at the nominal top have no real power, then it's pretty straightforward. Rampajet was the top-ranked permanent person in the SLN, so he was de facto in charge of the defense department.

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Eh, if you assume the political appointees at the nominal top have no real power, then it's pretty straightforward. Rampajet was the top-ranked permanent person in the SLN, so he was de facto in charge of the defense department.

Many governments work that way. The Brits, I believe still have Permanent Undersecretaries who run the bureaucracies. The Minisers are there for a short time.

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Eh, if you assume the political appointees at the nominal top have no real power, then it's pretty straightforward. Rampajet was the top-ranked permanent person in the SLN, so he was de facto in charge of the defense department.

You can see it in the U.S. government to an extent. Look at the service branch Secretary's. 99% of the news stories will be about the SecDef but SecNav SecArmy and SecAF forget it.

drothgery wrote:

cthia wrote:Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Eh, if you assume the political appointees at the nominal top have no real power, then it's pretty straightforward. Rampajet was the top-ranked permanent person in the SLN, so he was de facto in charge of the defense department.

That would seem to contradict textev that says the real government in the League were the Mandarins, of which Rajani was not an official member. He had a wild hair up his ass about it.

Besides, if Rajani was the real power then whatever machinery puts these people in place would be extremely concerned and chomping at the bits to replace him.

No one replaces the Permanent Undersecretaries presumably because they have a track record of running things well, and it goes against Solarian norms for politicians to interfere overmuch in what should be political areas.

You see this to a lesser degree in the USA with the norm of a "hands off" approach to law enforcement from politicians.

cthia wrote:hat kind of government on Sol would ever think to do such a thing?

Not entirely sure, but I have a guess: The kind of government that had watched a bunch of dirty, filth loving planet-siders not only nearly obliterate themselves, but successfully let deadly bioweapons into their Mars and Luna. And now a bunch of filth-loving planetsiders were now floating into their system to fix it.

Alternative Guess: The sort of government were most people had been gene-engineered to do well in low-gee, and higher radiation environments, and now had a bunch of people who were horribly racist against geneies trying to form a government in their system.

cthia wrote:Little wonder generational agents of the Malign can infiltrate power structures that stagnate, remaining the same for decades. If positions were to change like they should, then it would be a lot more difficult for people to succumb to bribes and recruitment of a foreign camp. But then, the League would know that, so why on Earth would the League subject itself to such a stupid command structure? It isn't like their history is unfamiliar with the notion of checks and balances.

When the League formed, travel between systems was difficult and really risky. It would be borderline impossible for anyone outside Sol or their home system to bribe them, let alone outside of the League. Offering a trillion Centuri Buckaroos isn't a great bribe if you need to take a life-risking journey through hyperspace to spend them.

Oh and the League wasn't supposed to have any real power. Even now its less a Star Nation, and more a tightly aligned bunch of Star Nations. Think EU, not USA.

tl;dr: The League was never intended to function properly.

quite possibly a cat wrote:No one replaces the Permanent Undersecretaries presumably because they have a track record of running things well, and it goes against Solarian norms for politicians to interfere overmuch in what should be political areas.

There's also the minor detail that there doesn't appear to be any mechanism for impeaching/removing bureaucrats. There's actually no formal procedure to put them in power, either. Regulations and Tradition govern how each permanent undersecretary get the job, but nobody has ever given any thought to removing them. (short of the back-stabbing and assassination -- character and literal enshrined in tradition.)

cthia wrote:Besides, if Rajani was the real power then whatever machinery puts these people in place would be extremely concerned and chomping at the bits to replace him.

He's the real power in the SLN (or was, and now Kingsford is).
The defense department is not important enough in the regular activities of the League for the defense department head to be part of the informal council of the most important permanent undersecretaries that the Mandarins are.

ldwechsler wrote:
Many governments work that way. The Brits, I believe still have Permanent Undersecretaries who run the bureaucracies. The Ministers are there for a short time.

That's right. That's why it's possible, when a party and Prime Minister in the UK lose an election, for the moving vans turn up in the later hours of the count, and the new government be officially in power at usually 10am or so the day after the election. The permanent Civil Servants keep the government going, the politicians just set broad policy. Political appointments in the Government Departments are usually just the Minister's immediate 'Special Advisors' (SPADs)

RFC seems to have taken a standard Civil Service for his Solarian League, then given them a situation where the elected officials who are supposed to tell them what to do, can't. So the un-elected Civil servants have become the masters.

If you want to see a humourous take on the British Civil Service, I recommend the BBC's Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.

cthia wrote:The League's command structure makes it hard to determine WTFery is going on there, and just who is allowing it to. There simply doesn't seem to be any checks and balances in the League's government. Well, plenty of checks, which are being cashed and deposited by the Mandarins, but certainly no balances.

None of the Mandarins ever stood for election, but they represented the true government, thus says textev. Why is there never an election? How did they ever get to be permanent? What kind of government on Sol would ever think to do such a thing? "Tenure" at universities can be a very bad thing.

Who is the most powerful of the Quintet? Is it Kolokoltsov, because he is the de facto coordinator? His resume says he is sort of first among equals.

I thought I read somewhere that there was a President of the League, which is odd because there is a Prime Minister. If there is a President, what kind of powers does he wield?

Research yields that the Prime Minister was the head of government and chairman of the cabinet of ministers in the Solarian League. In 1920 PD, Shona Gyulay held the office.

Rajani Rajampet: Officially he was Minister of Defense Taketomo Kunimichi's deputy, but Kunimichi's real command authority was sharply circumscribed and Admiral Rajampet was the de facto Defense Minister. In addition, he was a quasi-member of the so-called Quintet of senior bureaucrats who controlled League policy, at least regarding military matters. His lack of full-fledged membership among that group was a source of constant irritation to him. He held his last space-going command before 1871 PD.

Why hasn't Rajani been replaced? Can someone holding a position resign?

And why was Kunimichi's real command authority circumcised? LOL

Connecting the dots in the U.S. command structure is a piece of cake. It seems to be a house of horrors in the League.

Little wonder generational agents of the Malign can infiltrate power structures that stagnate, remaining the same for decades. If positions were to change like they should, then it would be a lot more difficult for people to succumb to bribes and recruitment of a foreign camp. But then, the League would know that, so why on Earth would the League subject itself to such a stupid command structure? It isn't like their history is unfamiliar with the notion of checks and balances.

"Quintet" was the unofficial name given to a group of five senior bureaucratic officials of the Solarian League who, due to the power of the bureaucracies they served and the limited powers of the representative and political bodies, were the League's real policymakers.

Around 1920 PD, the members of the Quintet and their offices were:

Malachai Abruzzi — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Education and Information

Innokentiy Kolokoltsov — Permanent Senior Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs

Nathan MacArtney — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Interior

Omosupe Quartermain — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of Commerce

Agatá Wodoslawski — Permanent Senior Undersecretary of the Treasury

In situations where large-scale military force was required, SLN Chief of Naval Operations Rajampet Rajani would serve as an "unofficial" sixth member of the cabal.

In many respects the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs usually served as the group's de facto coordinator.

Cthia,

Please see my post on the League's command structure and its vulnerability to a military coup in your "Remaining holes in SLN intel" thread.

Thank you.