Long term consequences of the League's collapse

JohnRoth wrote:There will be a gazillion predictions by the most respected pundits.

Going on strict historical precedent, they'll all be wrong.

Someone nobody ever heard of will crow "I was right!"

On further investigation, there will be good reasons nobody ever heard of him before.

A lot of academics will make their reputation writing "The Decline and Fall of the [s]Roman Empire[/s] Solarian League."

You should know that I almost fell off my chair after reading this, I was laughing so hard.

Nice one, John. A desperately needed infusion of realism (not to mention hilarity) in this discussion.

kzt wrote:

SWM wrote:The League actually appears very little to regulate trade, except to collect fees. That's because any single system can veto any law, so any laws that exist are ones that every member agreed to.

When was the last time the US Senate voted on a new EPA regulation? That doesn't mean they don't happen and don't carry absurd legal penalties.

Yep, I agree with kzt . The SL got into this posiiton because the Chamber of Stars was hamstrung at the beginning by the 'single veto' rule from passing almost anything of use (much like the Polish Sejm of the 17th century), which has led to a Government of Regulation by the bureaucrats....and bureaucrats and regulations are as bees to honey....

But even in overly-regulated systems (and no, I am not in the mood to argue which nation-states today are and are not overly-regulated), there is usually at least some method to the madness, some core of reasoning for the initial regulation to meet some need...which then inevitably expands to fill other areas (which may not need such regulation) until the purpose of the original is so far obscured.

Let me give a real-life example. US Government policy is to buy stuff competitively..which is a good idea, since competition will tend to keep the price down. But regulations on how to best compete items fill many books...and of course, some items (like the F16 fighter) only have one source--but since the policy is open competition, you need special documents to buy an items Sole Source...which requires new regulations.

And since dealing with one contractor is easier than trying to advertise to many, soon most contract are Sole Source awards....all per regulation.

And I think the SL is in the same place--what may have started centuries ago as simple, easy to understand policies to regulate trade between the League Planets are now libraries full of regulations on how to do it, taking into account all the fiddy-bits each Core world insists on and pretty soon, it just the way things work--with more than a little corruption and a lot of wasted time and effort, but just well enough that nobody yells too much (or at least those yelling are folks nobody in power has to listen too).

Which is why I tend to stand on the "It will be worse" side in regards to the collapse of the SL--because all those regulations will no longer be in effect (or enforceable, and all the planets, Core included, will have to not only face an economic crisis, but develop new rules for trade themselves on the fly, so to speak, and then negotiate with their neighbors if they will agree to trade on that basis (and said neighbors may have their own ideas on what equals fair trading...)

The resulting confusion and chaos will further harm the economies of the planets and give the people living there the feeling that 'things are going to hell", even if most of them see no change in their lifestyle. And that will lead to political upheaval most of the Core worlds haven't seen in Centuries.

I'm reminded that WWII, the last (for now) major clash between the "Great Powers" ended nearly 70 years ago; what will be the temperment on planets whose population has known only peace and prosperity for 500-600 years?

I don't now either, but I expect we'll be finding out.....

Sorry for rambling, the thoughts just kept coming out in no particular order.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

SWM wrote:Zhakarra, I've already agreed several times that the economies of the member systems will be badly affected. What we disagree on is how badly. Sure, the Solarian League has certain regulatory offices. But in general, the disappearance of those offices will not adversely affect the economies of the member systems. In some cases, it would actually help the local economies (at least in the short term), because the local government can eliminate or start collecting some of the fees that previously went to the League.

The League actually appears very little to regulate trade, except to collect fees. That's because any single system can veto any law, so any laws that exist are ones that every member agreed to.

We will have to agree to disagree, and wait to see.

Then please pardon my language, what the hell are the ministries for then? Each system controls just their system, that's it. Any time a SL system deals with another system in the SL, it runs into the interstellar commerce area and that is the domain of the federal government. The ministries run damned near everything government-wise on the interstellar level. They deal with the licensing, regulations and rule making, enforcement and to see that commerce flows, as well as getting their take from the transit fees on trade and wormhole usage. For some reason you're downplaying the effect the SL federal government has in the League. Sorry to say, but the federal government has a huge impact, especially since it's run by people who are not accountable to anyone but themselves. The ministries can and probably do change regulations to suit their needs and help their patrons. all the Assembly of Delegate is is a rubber stamp body. For the most part, the ministries manipulated it with expert skill and used it to rubber stamp their agenda.


As far as I know, no one system can veto a law at the interstellar level. From the voting and debate in the Assembly to investigate Beowulf in ART, one system vetoing the motion didn't mean the motion was denied. it's clearly a majority rule. Especially when in the final vote to do the investigation fully 1/4 of the Delegates voted against the measure, and the measure still passed. The system isn't set up that it has to be a 100% approval to be passed. It sounds like it's a 51-60% approval needed to pass things.

hanuman wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:In some areas -- mostly in the Shell and Protectorates -- You're probably closer than I am. But then, I'm not talking about Shell, Protectorate and Verge systems, I'm talking about the majority of Core systems.

Those systems may not even notice there's a war on until the annual shipment of Aldebran Frog Whiskers doesn't show up at the Six Star restaurants.

The further from Sol a system is, the greater the chance for chaos and economic ruin. The more chance of a SLN task force commander setting up as a warlord, or an OFS sector governor turning emperor for life. Revolts against transstellars and/or OFS are more likely at the edges of the League than they are in the Core Worlds where transstellars don't own planets outright and OFS doesn't operate.

Harold, all I'll say is that human nature is human nature. The effects of the League's disintegration will be worse in the Shell, Protectorates and Verge, yes. I agree with you on that point.

We'll see a lot of economic suffering, because remember, the transstellars will be withdrawing their people or will be expelled. That means that especially in the Verge and the Protectorates, the people with the skills to manage the economy will no longer be there. The technicians will be gone. The locals will for the most part be undereducated, without skills and habituated to following orders, not take the initiative.

The Protectorates and Verge will erupt in violence, because OFS and the FF will be gone. Human nature will mean that we'll see major civil conflict on many planets, as political leaders and movements fight to impose their particular visions on those planets or to grab power for themselves. We'll see interplanetary and interstellar wars. There will be an upsurge in piracy.

Much of that will happen in the Shell and the Core as well, although I'll grant that although things will probably be bad, the situation won't be quite as bad as in the Protectorates and the Verge.

Economically, there is no doubt that the Core and the Shell will suffer. What is a reasonable estimate of how much of a particular Core system's Gross System Product is directly produced by its interstellar trade? 10%? 20%? Let's be reasonably conservative and estimate 10%. But that is interstellar trade's DIRECT contribution to our hypothetical system's GSP. What about the indirect contribution? How much of that system/world's economic activity is to some extent involved with or dependent upon interstellar trade? When that system/world's interstellar trade is crippled by Lacoon II, even those businesses that are only partially dependent on interstellar trade will experience reduced turnover, meaning that ultimately the failure of those businesses directly involved in interstellar trade will send shockwaves through the entire planetary/system economy.

I think you are far too optimistic about the economic consequences of the League's collapse for the Core worlds.

Thank you for putting it so clear and concisely.

JohnRoth wrote:There will be a gazillion predictions by the most respected pundits.

Going on strict historical precedent, they'll all be wrong.

Someone nobody ever heard of will crow "I was right!"

On further investigation, there will be good reasons nobody ever heard of him before.

A lot of academics will make their reputation writing "The Decline and Fall of the [s]Roman Empire[/s] Solarian League."

Heh.

Zakharra wrote: As far as I know, no one system can veto a law at the interstellar level. From the voting and debate in the Assembly to investigate Beowulf in ART, one system vetoing the motion didn't mean the motion was denied. it's clearly a majority rule. Especially when in the final vote to do the investigation fully 1/4 of the Delegates voted against the measure, and the measure still passed. The system isn't set up that it has to be a 100% approval to be passed. It sounds like it's a 51-60% approval needed to pass things.

I wasn't going to respond, since I've already said we will have to agree to disagree, but I feel I have to correct this error. David has quite explicitly stated that the Solarian League cannot pass any law without a unanimous vote. The League Constitution was deliberately set up that way. The vote on investigating Beowulf was not a vote on a law, and thus does not require unanimity.

SWM wrote:I'm talking about the government of the member systems. You said that those systems will have economic crises. My point is that those system governments will be able to fund military expansion and R&D, even though their economies will be affected by Lacoon I and II.

Erm... no I didn't, at least not in this thread. I was just jumping into this thread with an aside.

Zakharra wrote: So they should just put themselves in the same position with Manticore controlling the single largest percentage of hulls carrying cargo in their territory as when it was the SL? Sorry. I'm not buying that. After what is happening, I can't see any of the new polities being willing to let one star system or a foreign polity have that much influence in their space and in their economy again if it decided to pull all shipping. Again.

You contend that the economic collapse is going to prevent individual systems from building a SDF, yet those same economically depressed systems are going to be able to replace the MMM's ships so they can ban MMM hulls without shutting down interstellar trade?

Most interstellar transport is going to be contracted to interstellar shippers and interstellar shippers are going to put the cargo in the hulls of the lowest bidder going in the right direction. In most cases that's going to be a MMM hull, and where systems have banned the MMM, it's going to be a hull headed for a system where the MMM is not banned -- increasing trade for the system that doesn't ban the MMM and restricting shipping to short hauls for the system that does.

System governments may impose sanctions against the MMM, but the commercial concerns doing the actual trading are going to find ways to put their cargo in the cheapest hulls possible.

Zakharra wrote:You're making huge assumption there would be mutual defense treaties with the GA.

No, I'm making the assumption that there will be mutual defense treaties with someone. Generally with the biggest Gorilla in the room. For the two-thirds of the League sphere covered by SEM/GA wormhole access, that's usually going to be the GA.

Zakharra wrote:If David Weber keeps the situation realistic, in all likelihood, most of the new polities won't have any mutual defense treaty with the GA. Why would they? The GA is directly (as they see it) responsible for the destruction of the SL.

If they feel that way, the Public Relations and Diplomatic campaign to put the blame where it belongs -- on the Mandarins and SLN -- will have failed and the SEM/GA's very existance will be perilous.

Zakharra wrote:They're going to likely be more inclined to trust the RF over the GA. The RF is composed of former SL systems.

As long as the systems defect from the SL and declare Neutrality, the GA will be satisfied until the RF becomes a threat; From the patience counseled by Albrecht, that could be a couple of centuries in the future.

Zakharra wrote: /eyeroll

Of course in the long term (several decades out) things will hopefully have settled down. The long term for the SL though is it's dead.

The title of this thread is "Long term consequences of the League's collapse."

Zakharra wrote:Long term for the former SL space? Broken up into several dozen star nations. Some large, some small, others independent. A fair number likely involved in empire building and a number of bush wars between them. You're assuming that there will be peace in the long run. There might be, several hundred years later, but unless someone is willing to stomp on any aggressor, and be seen as aggressors themselves,.

Again, this thread is "Long term consequences of the League's collapse" so of course I'm assuming that there will be "Peace" in the long run. The "Peace" is likely to be a web of Cold Wars and Armed Truces, but the warlords and conquerors will be stymied or dispatched and the situation will have stabilized.

Zakharra wrote:From what I've heard of the Harrington Doctrine, the GA and Manticore itself will very likely be seen as THE aggressor since the HD specifically aims to prevent any star polity from growing larger than the GA/Manticore likes. This means they -will- come into conflict when some of the new nations grow larger than the GA likes, especially if that nation isn't a fan of GA/Manticore.

Again, the goal is to prevent the formation of any larger polities by Diplomatic and Economic means while protecting them from aggression and/or building their self-defense capacity so they don't need protecting. If the Harrington Doctrine is successful, there won't be any non-aggressive reason for any system to join a larger polity and there will be sufficient defensive capacity to resist aggressive "reasons."

The "Harrington Doctrine" is a specific alternative to a military victory over the SL; a military victory would leave the kind of festering resentments you describe, which would fuel R&D and secret shipyards to build a new SLN and inevitably crush the GA.

The "Harrington Doctrine" is primarily a Diplomatic and Public Relations campaign, so if the SEM/GA is seen as the aggressor by a significant percentage of the formaer leaague, it will have failed

hanuman wrote:Harold, all I'll say is that human nature is human nature. The effects of the League's disintegration will be worse in the Shell, Protectorates and Verge, yes. I agree with you on that point.

We'll see a lot of economic suffering, because remember, the transstellars will be withdrawing their people or will be expelled. That means that especially in the Verge and the Protectorates, the people with the skills to manage the economy will no longer be there. The technicians will be gone. The locals will for the most part be undereducated, without skills and habituated to following orders, not take the initiative.

...

I think you are far too optimistic about the economic consequences of the League's collapse for the Core worlds.

Again, I'm looking at "Long term consequences of the League's collapse," in accordance with the original thread title. The consequences you're describing are mostly short-term consequences. I don't expect most of those negative effects to persist for more than a couple of decades in the Core and Shell worlds.

Weird Harold wrote:

hanuman wrote:Harold, all I'll say is that human nature is human nature. The effects of the League's disintegration will be worse in the Shell, Protectorates and Verge, yes. I agree with you on that point.

We'll see a lot of economic suffering, because remember, the transstellars will be withdrawing their people or will be expelled. That means that especially in the Verge and the Protectorates, the people with the skills to manage the economy will no longer be there. The technicians will be gone. The locals will for the most part be undereducated, without skills and habituated to following orders, not take the initiative.

...

I think you are far too optimistic about the economic consequences of the League's collapse for the Core worlds.

Again, I'm looking at "Long term consequences of the League's collapse," in accordance with the original thread title. The consequences you're describing are mostly short-term consequences. I don't expect most of those negative effects to persist for more than a couple of decades in the Core and Shell worlds.

Okay, so what exactly do you mean by "long term"? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty?

Because I have to tell you, as time passes the chaos that will follow upon the League's disintegration will inevitably spread inwards from the Verge and the Protectorates. It will take years, but more likely decades, before we'll see any kind of stable economic and diplomatic environment emerging.

hanuman wrote:Okay, so what exactly do you mean by "long term"? Ten years? Twenty? Fifty?

That would be somewhat variable, faster for Core worlds and slower for Verge worlds with poor education systems.

An average would probably be around twenty-five years.

hanuman wrote:Because I have to tell you, as time passes the chaos that will follow upon the League's disintegration will inevitably spread inwards from the Verge and the Protectorates. It will take years, but more likely decades, before we'll see any kind of stable economic and diplomatic environment emerging.

Whether chaos spreads inward or stability spreads outward will depend a lot on the success or failure of the Harrington Doctrine. The sooner a former member secedes and asserts neutrality or enters into some sort of mutual defense and trade agreements -- with ANYBODY -- the less chaos they'll endure and the less chaos from the verge will affect them.

A successful Harrington Doctrine is going to hamper the RF's expansion plans, because it envisions a lot of strong, stable, and independent star nations. But with the GA and RF both offering to provide trade and protection, the success of warlords and conquerors is going to be limited to the Verge and Protectorates.

Of course, my optimism is predicated upon the Harrington Doctrine being more successful that the Renaissance Factor's 'big government' solution and the MAlign's manipulations.

Weird Harold wrote:

Zakharra wrote: So they should just put themselves in the same position with Manticore controlling the single largest percentage of hulls carrying cargo in their territory as when it was the SL? Sorry. I'm not buying that. After what is happening, I can't see any of the new polities being willing to let one star system or a foreign polity have that much influence in their space and in their economy again if it decided to pull all shipping. Again.

You contend that the economic collapse is going to prevent individual systems from building a SDF, yet those same economically depressed systems are going to be able to replace the MMM's ships so they can ban MMM hulls without shutting down interstellar trade?

Most interstellar transport is going to be contracted to interstellar shippers and interstellar shippers are going to put the cargo in the hulls of the lowest bidder going in the right direction. In most cases that's going to be a MMM hull, and where systems have banned the MMM, it's going to be a hull headed for a system where the MMM is not banned -- increasing trade for the system that doesn't ban the MMM and restricting shipping to short hauls for the system that does.

System governments may impose sanctions against the MMM, but the commercial concerns doing the actual trading are going to find ways to put their cargo in the cheapest hulls possible.

It's a lot cheaper to build merchant ships than warships. They don't have things like armor and weapons to worry about and it takes less metal to make one (assuming the yard has the size to make SDs).

Zakharra wrote:You're making huge assumption there would be mutual defense treaties with the GA.

No, I'm making the assumption that there will be mutual defense treaties with someone. Generally with the biggest Gorilla in the room. For the two-thirds of the League sphere covered by SEM/GA wormhole access, that's usually going to be the GA.

That's a big assumption to make. Very bog, that those systems would make mutual defense treaties with the GA.

Zakharra wrote:If David Weber keeps the situation realistic, in all likelihood, most of the new polities won't have any mutual defense treaty with the GA. Why would they? The GA is directly (as they see it) responsible for the destruction of the SL.

If they feel that way, the Public Relations and Diplomatic campaign to put the blame where it belongs -- on the Mandarins and SLN -- will have failed and the SEM/GA's very existance will be perilous.

Why wouldn't the blame be on the GA? The GA is the only force the SL has come up against in the last few centuries, and it will literally be the only visible enemy that the SL was fighting when it collapses. It's likely that a lot of people will see that if Manticore hadn't been in the way, hadn't stood up and fought the SL, disrupted trade and caused the breakup of the SL, the SL would still exist. Don't underestimate the ability of people to see what they want. And to be honest, a lot of them were comfortable with the SL and where it was headed.

Zakharra wrote:They're going to likely be more inclined to trust the RF over the GA. The RF is composed of former SL systems.

As long as the systems defect from the SL and declare Neutrality, the GA will be satisfied until the RF becomes a threat; From the patience counseled by Albrecht, that could be a couple of centuries in the future.

The Harrington doctrine was that the GA would allow no star polity to emerge that it, the GA, saw as a threat to the GA.

Zakharra wrote:Long term for the former SL space? Broken up into several dozen star nations. Some large, some small, others independent. A fair number likely involved in empire building and a number of bush wars between them. You're assuming that there will be peace in the long run. There might be, several hundred years later, but unless someone is willing to stomp on any aggressor, and be seen as aggressors themselves,.

Again, this thread is "Long term consequences of the League's collapse" so of course I'm assuming that there will be "Peace" in the long run. The "Peace" is likely to be a web of Cold Wars and Armed Truces, but the warlords and conquerors will be stymied or dispatched and the situation will have stabilized.

That's an assumption. In all likelihood, there will be some stability again, but there could very well be several good sized nations or even some small ones that are at a armed hostility or some might be at war with each other. I'm not sure how many would have good relations with the GA.

Zakharra wrote:From what I've heard of the Harrington Doctrine, the GA and Manticore itself will very likely be seen as THE aggressor since the HD specifically aims to prevent any star polity from growing larger than the GA/Manticore likes. This means they -will- come into conflict when some of the new nations grow larger than the GA likes, especially if that nation isn't a fan of GA/Manticore.

Again, the goal is to prevent the formation of any larger polities by Diplomatic and Economic means while protecting them from aggression and/or building their self-defense capacity so they don't need protecting. If the Harrington Doctrine is successful, there won't be any non-aggressive reason for any system to join a larger polity and there will be sufficient defensive capacity to resist aggressive "reasons."

The "Harrington Doctrine" is a specific alternative to a military victory over the SL; a military victory would leave the kind of festering resentments you describe, which would fuel R&D and secret shipyards to build a new SLN and inevitably crush the GA.

The "Harrington Doctrine" is primarily a Diplomatic and Public Relations campaign, so if the SEM/GA is seen as the aggressor by a significant percentage of the formaer leaague, it will have failed

It's being seen as the aggressor NOW by most of the League. Why shouldn't it be? It's the only hostile power existing atm. The MAlign isn't known about and most of the citizenry flat out refuses to believe that a mere corporation could be manipulating the SL. It's going to be a hard sell to the general public of the SL to get them to believe it's not the GAs fault.

The HD also stipulates the use of military force if any of those polities become what it sees as a threat. The doctrine says that they will not allow -any- polity to grow above a certain size and if they have to use military force to put it down, they will. The GA/Mantocire is literally setting itself up as the police force of the former SL area. The GA and the GA alone is going to be the one to decide if a star nation is slapped down or not. No matter what happens, the GA should be seen as an enemy of some sort by many of the worlds and successor states. Especially if it actively works to keep those states below it.

I know you will say there will be economic and diplomatic treaties and missions and efforts, but I am assuming that a fair number of the successor states won't really want to have much to do with the GA, and all of them will be working hard to build their military capacity to match the GA anyways. Like it not, most of those states are going to create a militarily that is comparable to the GA one, and that comparability will make them a threat to the GA. They will have strong incentive to have a strong military
and if the GA has militarily slapped down some of the states, the GA will not be seen as a friendly power. Even if the GA uses its economic and diplomacy to control the size any of the successor states can get, that will not make them any friends.

That doesn't mean some of them won't be at at peace with the GA or allied to it, but it doesn't mean that some of those new nations won't be hostile, even if diplomatically, with the GA. To assume the GA is going to be on good terms with all of them is kind of foolish. There's going to be lingering bad feelings no matter what the GA does.