Sphinx and Gryphon class SD

stewart wrote:

Zakharra wrote:
Remember that 3/4 of the Delegates/worlds thought Beowulf did betray the SLN admiral when they denied her permission to use the junction. So I don't think that many will think the SLN/SL is overstepping its authority/bounds since the ones admiral's views on how the SL constitution is viewed seems to be a p[relevant one to a lot of systems and bureaucrats: that is is what modern convention says it is. ie that the right to secede from the SL has been made invalid because its never been used before or that the SLN can override the authority of individual systems because it says it has reason to.

----------------

The Vote was also taken after a considerable "prepping-the-ground" by E&I and the Sollie news media.

It will be "verry interesting" how those attitudes may change as the details of "Case Buccaneer" and the other contingency plans get leaked out.

The Core worlds who voted against Beowulf will likely believe what they are led / told to believe.

The Shell, Protectorate and Verge areas, those that are full League members, will likely side with Beowulf, if they didn't already. The nominal-independent protectorates and "managed" systems will want to throw their League or corporate managers out the nearest air-lock (space-suit optional).

-- Stewart

One should be careful about assuming that the delegates were truly representing their home worlds. Due to the way the League constitution was set up, most worlds aren't taking the assembly very seriously and it tends more toward being a debating society than a body that does serious legislating. The consequence of that is that with the exception of Beowulf and perhaps a few others, the delegates are political hacks or simply people who were given their present positions as a way of getting them out of the way of serious business at home. Dead enders, so to speak.

Also one shouldn't assume that the public opinion that the Mandrains are playing to and trying to shape in Old Chicago on earth truly represents the opinion of the whole League. One of the things that will probably be important in the League coming apart will be when other core worls start discovering that Old Chicago not only doesn't represent its views, but is also bad for business.

Don

JeffEngel wrote:If I were a Battle Fleet admiral who has an idea what may happen to the League, I'd be tempted to take that assignment, or even "demonstrate initiative appropriate to a senior flag officer in the field" and go off on my own, find out about the collapse of the League when I get out there, and come home with the political asset of an intact BF formation to secure a high place in some successor state. And if I were a MA sleeper, I'd be even more inclined to do so and return to the Renaissance Factor.

Alternately, just head out and set up as a benevolent warlord of a sector. Being a benevolent warlord may very have benefits that a Battle Fleet Admiral doesn't, such as an increased life expectancy.

n7axw wrote:One should be careful about assuming that the delegates were truly representing their home worlds. Due to the way the League constitution was set up, most worlds aren't taking the assembly very seriously and it tends more toward being a debating society than a body that does serious legislating. The consequence of that is that with the exception of Beowulf and perhaps a few others, the delegates are political hacks or simply people who were given their present positions as a way of getting them out of the way of serious business at home. Dead enders, so to speak.

Also one shouldn't assume that the public opinion that the Mandrains are playing to and trying to shape in Old Chicago on earth truly represents the opinion of the whole League. One of the things that will probably be important in the League coming apart will be when other core worls start discovering that Old Chicago not only doesn't represent its views, but is also bad for business.

Don

Yup. That what I meant when I asked who was bribing who and why. Where is the money coming from to buy that many rich people?

kzt wrote:

n7axw wrote:One should be careful about assuming that the delegates were truly representing their home worlds. Due to the way the League constitution was set up, most worlds aren't taking the assembly very seriously and it tends more toward being a debating society than a body that does serious legislating. The consequence of that is that with the exception of Beowulf and perhaps a few others, the delegates are political hacks or simply people who were given their present positions as a way of getting them out of the way of serious business at home. Dead enders, so to speak.

Also one shouldn't assume that the public opinion that the Mandrains are playing to and trying to shape in Old Chicago on earth truly represents the opinion of the whole League. One of the things that will probably be important in the League coming apart will be when other core worls start discovering that Old Chicago not only doesn't represent its views, but is also bad for business.

Don

Yup. That what I meant when I asked who was bribing who and why. Where is the money coming from to buy that many rich people?

As was pointed out earlier, much of the bribery was in the form of blackmail, extortion, or the trading of favors, rather than actual money per se.

fallsfromtrees wrote:As was pointed out earlier, much of the bribery was in the form of blackmail, extortion, or the trading of favors, rather than actual money per se.

So you are going to try to blackmail or extort a few thousand of the richest and well connected people in the entire SL? Really? You think this will end well?

kzt wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:As was pointed out earlier, much of the bribery was in the form of blackmail, extortion, or the trading of favors, rather than actual money per se.

So you are going to try to blackmail or extort a few thousand of the richest and well connected people in the entire SL? Really? You think this will end well?

If you have good secret police, it shouldn't be that hard.
What we know about defences of Solar System? We only know that on the orbit of Mars we have Hyperion One - biggest repair station and one of biggest storages of mothballed ships and in asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter there is very big extraction and mining centres.

Draken wrote:
If you have good secret police, it shouldn't be that hard.
What we know about defences of Solar System? We only know that on the orbit of Mars we have Hyperion One - biggest repair station and one of biggest storages of mothballed ships and in asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter there is very big extraction and mining centres.

The Solarian League at this point in time doesn't have paticularly good ANYTHING in organizational terms. Social repression amongst its member worlds has not been a part of the matrix. Probably the closest they have is OFS which does its dirty work in the protectorates.

As for kzt's point, no you don't try to bribe and extort these poeple. What you do is call in favors which textev in ART suggests is exactly what happened.

Don

kzt wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:As was pointed out earlier, much of the bribery was in the form of blackmail, extortion, or the trading of favors, rather than actual money per se.

So you are going to try to blackmail or extort a few thousand of the richest and well connected people in the entire SL? Really? You think this will end well?

I don't believe that there was much in the way of textev that these are the among the richest people in the entire SL. The richest people in the SL are too busy handling their money to be bothered with an irrelevant entity like the Assembly - they hire people to do that. While most of the Assembly members are well connected, the vast majority were people who were shuffled out of the way because they couldn't do any harm stuck in the Assembly.

kzt wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:As was pointed out earlier, much of the bribery was in the form of blackmail, extortion, or the trading of favors, rather than actual money per se.

So you are going to try to blackmail or extort a few thousand of the richest and well connected people in the entire SL? Really? You think this will end well?

North Hollow managed to control a majority of the SKM House of Lords and a significant percentage of the House of Commons with his secret files. Why shouldn't the Solarian League have one or more equivalents?

The point is that textev says the Mandarins made sure that the vote came out the way they wanted:

A Rising Thunder wrote:“The vote is eight thousand seven hundred and twelve in favor, two thousand nine hundred and three opposed. The motion is carried.”

A roar went up, and Hadley’s jaw clenched. Not in surprise, but in anger. The only surprise was that almost a quarter of the Assembly had voted against the motion. That was a dangerous sign for the Mandarins, given the massive effort they’d mounted to pass the motion in the first place. It suggested all sorts of unpleasant things, yet that was for the future. For now …

Weird Harold wrote:North Hollow managed to control a majority of the SKM House of Lords and a significant percentage of the House of Commons with his secret files. Why shouldn't the Solarian League have one or more equivalents?

The League Assembly is so much of a cipher that that Mandarins plausibly haven't had the use for something like the North Hollow Files. They could get the Assembly vote they wanted - and in other times, appropriate Assembly theater - by offers of patronage, threats to withhold it, making sure candidates are gullible enough to be led, giving legislators promises of cushy jobs after their term, etc.