Royal (Imperial) Manticore Army

Vince wrote:Do you start counting from zero or one?

Two thumbs down, 0 (0)
Right thumb up, 1 (1)
Left thumb up, 10 (2)
Both thumbs up, 11 (3)

I can actually go up to 31 on one hand. Once I start adding in the second hand it gets hard to get in a glance, but if I ever get it down, I will have up to 1023 on just my fingers.

n7axw wrote:

hanuman wrote:Don, if it is the customary practice according to interstellar law for a planet to surrender once its own naval forces lose control over its near-planetary space, the corollary would be that the star nation whose naval forces have taken control of that planet's near-planetary space will have certain obligations, including maintaining peace and order, preventing atrocities and ensuring the delivery of essential social services, under that same interstellar law, as the occupying power.

As such, occupying near-planetary space but leaving the planet itself to its own devices would not be compliant with interstellar law, and that is the kind of diplomatic slip-up that the GA's leadership is far too smart to commit.

What you are saying sounds ideal, but I am not aware that there is any text ev to support you here.

If your goal is to control the affairs of such a planet, then what you are saying makes sense. But if you are in the orbitals, you are simply denying the planet access to space. You are not displacing the government. The people might decide to replace the government, but that is their affair. All you are doing is saying that they can have access to their orbitals by renouncing the League and signing a treaty which in turn gets them protection and favored status for trade.

Don

Masada. San Martin. The Havenite planets that Manticore occupied during and after the First Havenite War.

We KNOW that Manticore has consistently been strongly committed to following interstellar law in her war effort, so I would say that her conduct on those planets fall within the dictates of interstellar law.

The points I mentioned - maintaining peace and order, preventing atrocities, ensuring the delivery of essential social services (healthcare, food supply, sanitary services etc.) - all fall within the scope of administering an occupied planet.

But here's the important point. If the Deneb Accords dictate when a planet should surrender, and how prisoners-of-war should be treated (in great detail, I needn't remind you), I rather doubt that they would neglect to dictate the basic obligations, responsibilities and rights of the forces occupying a planet.

All I am really saying here is that demanding surrender is not the only alternative available to someone who occupies the orbitals. And if no surrender is demanded, the things you say don't apply.

In fact there are degrees of surrender. Consider what happened when Mike Henke moved into Meyers. OFS surrendered, but since there was a framework of locals ready to assume basic responsibility for governancem, she left them to it, leaving behind only enough naval strength to prevent OFS from moving back in.

There is no one size fits all formula here.

Don

n7axw wrote:All I am really saying here is that demanding surrender is not the only alternative available to someone who occupies the orbitals. And if no surrender is demanded, the things you say don't apply.

In fact there are degrees of surrender. Consider what happened when Mike Henke moved into Meyers. OFS surrendered, but since there was a framework of locals ready to assume basic responsibility for governancem, she left them to it, leaving behind only enough naval strength to prevent OFS from moving back in.

There is no one size fits all formula here.

Don

I understand what you're saying. I absolutely do. The Meyers scenario would in fact be ideal. It would certainly cut down on the manpower investment by the GA if they could simply move in to oust any Frontier Fleet forces from a system and then hand over power to a pre-existing local government.

However, you know as well as I do that that won't always (or even mostly) be the case. There will be instances in which OFS has tolerated no local authorities at all - not even puppet governments. There will be instances where the locals are so divided among themselves that ANY removal of OFS and the Gendarmerie will immediately lead to civil conflict.

The Meyers system government was in fact an exception to the rule - the king and his 'government' actually tried to soften the impact of OFS rule upon his subjects. But the truth is that where OFS did rely upon puppet governments, most of those governments would have actively collaborated with OFS and the transstellars in order to protect their own personal and family interests.

In those cases, I can guarantee you that once OFS and the Gendarmerie are no longer there to keep those governments in power, the local populations will revolt against them, which will lead - again - to civil conflict.

As such, the GA will have no choice but to move into an occupier's role, as Manticore did on San Martin. And once it does, it will have to conduct its occupation according to interstellar law, if it wishes to maintain the moral and diplomatic high ground.

crewdude48 wrote:

Vince wrote:Do you start counting from zero or one?

Two thumbs down, 0 (0)
Right thumb up, 1 (1)
Left thumb up, 10 (2)
Both thumbs up, 11 (3)

I can actually go up to 31 on one hand. Once I start adding in the second hand it gets hard to get in a glance, but if I ever get it down, I will have up to 1023 on just my fingers.

But that is four numbers!

hanuman wrote:

n7axw wrote:All I am really saying here is that demanding surrender is not the only alternative available to someone who occupies the orbitals. And if no surrender is demanded, the things you say don't apply.

In fact there are degrees of surrender. Consider what happened when Mike Henke moved into Meyers. OFS surrendered, but since there was a framework of locals ready to assume basic responsibility for governancem, she left them to it, leaving behind only enough naval strength to prevent OFS from moving back in.

There is no one size fits all formula here.

Don

I understand what you're saying. I absolutely do. The Meyers scenario would in fact be ideal. It would certainly cut down on the manpower investment by the GA if they could simply move in to oust any Frontier Fleet forces from a system and then hand over power to a pre-existing local government.

However, you know as well as I do that that won't always (or even mostly) be the case. There will be instances in which OFS has tolerated no local authorities at all - not even puppet governments. There will be instances where the locals are so divided among themselves that ANY removal of OFS and the Gendarmerie will immediately lead to civil conflict.

The Meyers system government was in fact an exception to the rule - the king and his 'government' actually tried to soften the impact of OFS rule upon his subjects. But the truth is that where OFS did rely upon puppet governments, most of those governments would have actively collaborated with OFS and the transstellars in order to protect their own personal and family interests.

In those cases, I can guarantee you that once OFS and the Gendarmerie are no longer there to keep those governments in power, the local populations will revolt against them, which will lead - again - to civil conflict.

As such, the GA will have no choice but to move into an occupier's role, as Manticore did on San Martin. And once it does, it will have to conduct its occupation according to interstellar law, if it wishes to maintain the moral and diplomatic high ground.

It depends on what we are talking about. If we are talking about some hardscrabble planet in the verge that OFS and the trans-stellars have exploited forever, then you are right. No doubt about it.

But, on the other hand, if we are talking about League members in the shell or the core, these are self governing with a right to secede according to the League's constitution. Unless the local regime is unusually repressive, there is no point in messing with it. You just want it to renounce the League and get rid of any SLN units or support structure. To accomplish that, you offer the carrots at the same time you wield the stick, which was what my original idea was all about.

I would propose that this last group is where the GA needs to focus. It would be pretty unproductive in terms of breaking up the League for the GA to expend its effort mucking around in the verge.

Don

n7axw wrote:All I am really saying here is that demanding surrender is not the only alternative available to someone who occupies the orbitals. And if no surrender is demanded, the things you say don't apply.

In fact there are degrees of surrender. Consider what happened when Mike Henke moved into Meyers. OFS surrendered, but since there was a framework of locals ready to assume basic responsibility for governancem, she left them to it, leaving behind only enough naval strength to prevent OFS from moving back in.

There is no one size fits all formula here.

Don

hanuman wrote:I understand what you're saying. I absolutely do. The Meyers scenario would in fact be ideal. It would certainly cut down on the manpower investment by the GA if they could simply move in to oust any Frontier Fleet forces from a system and then hand over power to a pre-existing local government.

However, you know as well as I do that that won't always (or even mostly) be the case. There will be instances in which OFS has tolerated no local authorities at all - not even puppet governments. There will be instances where the locals are so divided among themselves that ANY removal of OFS and the Gendarmerie will immediately lead to civil conflict.

The Meyers system government was in fact an exception to the rule - the king and his 'government' actually tried to soften the impact of OFS rule upon his subjects. But the truth is that where OFS did rely upon puppet governments, most of those governments would have actively collaborated with OFS and the transstellars in order to protect their own personal and family interests.

In those cases, I can guarantee you that once OFS and the Gendarmerie are no longer there to keep those governments in power, the local populations will revolt against them, which will lead - again - to civil conflict.

As such, the GA will have no choice but to move into an occupier's role, as Manticore did on San Martin. And once it does, it will have to conduct its occupation according to interstellar law, if it wishes to maintain the moral and diplomatic high ground.

n7axw wrote:It depends on what we are talking about. If we are talking about some hardscrabble planet in the verge that OFS and the trans-stellars have exploited forever, then you are right. No doubt about it.

But, on the other hand, if we are talking about League members in the shell or the core, these are self governing with a right to secede according to the League's constitution. Unless the local regime is unusually repressive, there is no point in messing with it. You just want it to renounce the League and get rid of any SLN units or support structure. To accomplish that, you offer the carrots at the same time you wield the stick, which was what my original idea was all about.

I would propose that this last group is where the GA needs to focus. It would be pretty unproductive in terms of breaking up the League for the GA to expend its effort mucking around in the verge.

Don

Unfortunately, that option has already been foreclosed by the MAlign fomenting rebellions in the Verge and using the SEM's name as the instigating party. Realistically, the SEM has no option but to cash those chips, even though they didn't issue them.

Two other tactical and strategic issues also intrude. One is that Admiral Gold Peak wants to cut off the SL's presence in as many Verge sectors as she can reach, which gives the SEM a moral obligation to handle the political vacuum that leaves.

Also, chopping the transstellars off ought to be part of the plan to wreak economic havoc and destabilize the League. So there doesn't seem to be a realistic option to avoid mucking around in the Verge.

JohnRoth wrote:

n7axw wrote:All I am really saying here is that demanding surrender is not the only alternative available to someone who occupies the orbitals. And if no surrender is demanded, the things you say don't apply.

In fact there are degrees of surrender. Consider what happened when Mike Henke moved into Meyers. OFS surrendered, but since there was a framework of locals ready to assume basic responsibility for governancem, she left them to it, leaving behind only enough naval strength to prevent OFS from moving back in.

There is no one size fits all formula here.

Don

hanuman wrote:I understand what you're saying. I absolutely do. The Meyers scenario would in fact be ideal. It would certainly cut down on the manpower investment by the GA if they could simply move in to oust any Frontier Fleet forces from a system and then hand over power to a pre-existing local government.

However, you know as well as I do that that won't always (or even mostly) be the case. There will be instances in which OFS has tolerated no local authorities at all - not even puppet governments. There will be instances where the locals are so divided among themselves that ANY removal of OFS and the Gendarmerie will immediately lead to civil conflict.

The Meyers system government was in fact an exception to the rule - the king and his 'government' actually tried to soften the impact of OFS rule upon his subjects. But the truth is that where OFS did rely upon puppet governments, most of those governments would have actively collaborated with OFS and the transstellars in order to protect their own personal and family interests.

In those cases, I can guarantee you that once OFS and the Gendarmerie are no longer there to keep those governments in power, the local populations will revolt against them, which will lead - again - to civil conflict.

As such, the GA will have no choice but to move into an occupier's role, as Manticore did on San Martin. And once it does, it will have to conduct its occupation according to interstellar law, if it wishes to maintain the moral and diplomatic high ground.

n7axw wrote:It depends on what we are talking about. If we are talking about some hardscrabble planet in the verge that OFS and the trans-stellars have exploited forever, then you are right. No doubt about it.

But, on the other hand, if we are talking about League members in the shell or the core, these are self governing with a right to secede according to the League's constitution. Unless the local regime is unusually repressive, there is no point in messing with it. You just want it to renounce the League and get rid of any SLN units or support structure. To accomplish that, you offer the carrots at the same time you wield the stick, which was what my original idea was all about.

I would propose that this last group is where the GA needs to focus. It would be pretty unproductive in terms of breaking up the League for the GA to expend its effort mucking around in the verge.

Don

Unfortunately, that option has already been foreclosed by the MAlign fomenting rebellions in the Verge and using the SEM's name as the instigating party. Realistically, the SEM has no option but to cash those chips, even though they didn't issue them.

Two other tactical and strategic issues also intrude. One is that Admiral Gold Peak wants to cut off the SL's presence in as many Verge sectors as she can reach, which gives the SEM a moral obligation to handle the political vacuum that leaves.

Also, chopping the transstellars off ought to be part of the plan to wreak economic havoc and destabilize the League. So there doesn't seem to be a realistic option to avoid mucking around in the Verge.

I'll reply to both John's and Don's posts here.

Don, we're definitely in agreement. My post did apply for the most part to Verge star nations and the Protectorates. I think that those are the sectors where the GA will have to make the greatest manpower investment, as well as a significant financial investment, once it has ousted OFS, Frontier Fleet and the Gendarmerie. Those are the mostly likely planets where we'll see serious revolts and civil conflict without the restraining presence of FF and the Gendarmerie.

However, even some of the Shell worlds and Core worlds will experience civil unrest to some extent, especially in the wake of the economic disruption caused by Laocoon II. Still, I agree with you that those worlds have been settled for so long, and that their political systems and customs have been established for so long, that their governments will for the most part survive any civil upheavals.

John, while I agree with you that it is imperative that the GA get rid of the transstellars' presence in the Protectorates and Verge, that could very well result in a double-edged sword.

Remember that, specifically in the Protectorates, the local populations have essentially been reduced to serfdom. Cheap labour pools, in other words. Few to none of the locals will be able to take over the more critical jobs in the local economies, which for the most part have been performed by 'imported' transstellar personnel. Once the transstellars withdraw their employees (if they do, of course) those jobs will still need to be done, in order to keep those local economies running.

If the GA is responsible for the transstellars' withdrawal, then it becomes the GA's moral obligation to replace those critical employees, at least until such time as locals can be trained to take over. That could be years, though, as I rather doubt that OFS was ever interested in investing any resources in the Protectorates' education systems.

We don't know exactly how many planets we're talking about when we talk about the Verge and the Protectorates, but there must be thousands. In the Haven Sector itself, which is but a tiny corner of human space, there are at least a thousand inhabited worlds (300+ in the Republic alone, plus what, 150-200(?) in Silesia, and another 100 or so in the Andermani Empire).

However many of those thousands of Verge and Protectorate worlds are liberated by the GA, the economic cost and demand for trained manpower to keep the liberated planets' economies running will be tremendous and will last many years, possibly decades.

I know I've moved away from the topic under discussion a bit, but these things are all interrelated. There is no way to divorce the demand for armed forces for the purpose of occupying a planet from the demand for trained civilians to take over critical jobs and undertake economic development programmes - they go hand-in-hand.

One way to relieve that demand upon the GA's very limited human resources, will be to invite the GA's new allies among the League's successor states to take over at least some of those civilian obligations - either privately on a regulated for-profit basis or publicly.

I normally tend to be a sucker for moral arguments. But a nations first moral responsibility is for its own people. In the case of SEM, it must secure itself by first breaking up the League and then preparing for the confrontation with the Alignment. Any allocation of resourses must be directed to the furtherance of these twin goals.

If dealing with a situation in the verge - and there will be some - then by all means, step in and do what is needed. But otherwise, not so fast... The verge is so vast that the GA's resourses could literally be absorbed when those revolts against OFS start breaking out. There is going to have to be some prioritizing and there are going to be folks out there whom the GA are not going to be able to help and still keep their eye on the ball.

Don

n7axw wrote:I normally tend to be a sucker for moral arguments. But a nations first moral responsibility is for its own people. In the case of SEM, it must secure itself by first breaking up the League and then preparing for the confrontation with the Alignment. Any allocation of resourses must be directed to the furtherance of these twin goals.

If dealing with a situation in the verge - and there will be some - then by all means, step in and do what is needed. But otherwise, not so fast... The verge is so vast that the GA's resourses could literally be absorbed when those revolts against OFS start breaking out. There is going to have to be some prioritizing and there are going to be folks out there whom the GA are not going to be able to help and still keep their eye on the ball.

Don

Yes, my argument is moralistic to some extent, but that's exactly the point of the Harrington Doctrine, isn't it? Once the League has collapsed into however many successor states, the GA will need to offer something better to induce those successor states to ally themselves with the GA (or at least, to maintain friendly relations with it).

Let's leave the Core and Shell worlds aside for now, since we're essentially in agreement about them. The size of their population, their industrial capacity, and their military and technological potential make it absolutely imperative that the GA establishes good relations with them; their entrenched political traditions make it likely that they'll be able to maintain local stability, for the most part.

But the Protectorates and the Verge planets ARE important as well. A great number of those worlds are relatively close to the Haven Sector and the Talbott Quadrant - the GA will want to prevent any kind of widespread general instability close to its members' borders. Not only will such instability give rise to piracy, but it will also divert GA military forces from far more important deployments.

Moreover, the GA (for now, mostly Manticore, but soon also Haven and the others) conduct a great deal of its trade in the Verge and the Protectorates. Once again, general instability will lead to a surge in piracy, and will force the GA to divert military forces from elsewhere.

Far more importantly, moral behaviour isn't just some froofraa with no practical, real-world implications. Let's sketch a likely hypothetical scenario. The GA has just come through a war with the League - a war that, from the GA's side, was waged precisely because of the League's immoral neo-colonial imperialism. The League itself is gone, replaced by hundreds of successor states. Yes, many of them are stable, strong former Core and Shell worlds, and the GA is actively seeking to establish itself as a trustworthy partner of any potential allies among those former Core and Shell worlds.

But, as members of the League, those potential allies in the former Core and Shell regions have just had their arses handed to them by the GA. They don't as yet trust the GA, and in most cases there is a certain amount of fear OF the GA. The GA needs to dispel that fear and distrust, and the best way to do that is to demonstrate that it is NOT the League, that its way of doing things are far better, far more moral than that of the League, that the League's behaviour OUT IN THE PROTECTORATES was indeed immoral and unacceptable.

That is why it will be imperative for the GA to take an active role in the Protectorates and the Verge - to prevent civil conflict, to extend developmental aid, to assist where requested to do so in maintaining law and order, to help establish strong, stable local governments, to suppress piracy. The GA will need to prove that its way is better than the League's way, if it will have any chance whatsoever of implementing the Harrington Doctrine successfully.

It is a very moral position, but one that is grounded in practical necessity, I think.

Still, you're quite right regarding how vast the Verge and the Protectorates are. It will be impossible for the GA to become involved EVERYWHERE in those regions and still focus on what is truly important - the ongoing confrontation with the Alignment.

Although diplomacy and politics are quite often about perceptions and appearances, as I wrote above, diplomats and politicians are also eminently realistic creatures (or they should be, at least). I don't expect that the leaders of the League's successor states in the former Core and Shell regions will actually expect the GA to get involved everywhere in the outer regions. I don't think that will be necessary, and I think they'll be likely to understand that such an undertaking will be quite simply impossible.

What I do think is that they'll be looking at how the GA acts in those areas of the outer regions that are relatively close to its members' own borders, and those that are relatively close to the wormhole network's various termini, because that is where the GA will be most active commercially.