Fate of the Solarian League

One can readily think of a large nation that some time back managed to lose battle after battle and have a massively corrupt leadership. And then there was a meeting of The Young Officers and an extended process that changed matters. One might propose that the author has put this shotgun on the wall, almost as clearly as the Tennis Court and Rob S Pierre.

We must wait to see if there is an Officers Association (All Services) with elected office-holders, and if one of the mandarins decides to use it as a parking slot for some cronies in need of sinecures, at which point (i) they lose the election due to the young officers organizing, (ii) they win via corruption, leading to disaffection, or (iii) they lose despite corruption, and are installed via mandarin decree, leading to serious disaffection between the military and the mandarins.

phillies wrote:One can readily think of a large nation that some time back managed to lose battle after battle and have a massively corrupt leadership. And then there was a meeting of The Young Officers and an extended process that changed matters. One might propose that the author has put this shotgun on the wall, almost as clearly as the Tennis Court and Rob S Pierre.

We must wait to see if there is an Officers Association (All Services) with elected office-holders, and if one of the mandarins decides to use it as a parking slot for some cronies in need of sinecures, at which point (i) they lose the election due to the young officers organizing, (ii) they win via corruption, leading to disaffection, or (iii) they lose despite corruption, and are installed via mandarin decree, leading to serious disaffection between the military and the mandarins.

I think it unlikely that a) there is an Officers Association (largely because of the split between BF and FF and the Marines) and that fact that many of the (particularly) junior officers are scattered all over the League, Verge, and protectorates and b) that even if there was such a beast that the mandarins would attempt to park any cronies there. Since it is an officers association, the members have to be officers, and the mandarins deal with the military through the CNO. Therefore they are unlikely to have uniformed cronies that need to be parked anywhere.

phillies wrote:One can readily think of a large nation that some time back managed to lose battle after battle and have a massively corrupt leadership. And then there was a meeting of The Young Officers and an extended process that changed matters. One might propose that the author has put this shotgun on the wall, almost as clearly as the Tennis Court and Rob S Pierre.

Haven was a real star nation. It had a navy that was in the habit of hanging together, against the Manties and against StateSec, to serve as one unifying institution. It had the sense of pride in getting back to work to fight that war. It had planetary governments with the expectation of taking orders from Nouveau Paris. So a coup d'etat there could actually get somewhere - there were reins of power to seize.

The Solarian League doesn't have reins of power so much as... feathers of power. The navy is bitterly divided internally, and it's not so much a working, organic institution as it is a collective fraud with ancient historical backing. No one is in the habit of taking orders from Old Chicago - they are in the habit of getting career advancement and patronage from it. No one is willing to die for the dream of a restored (ha!) Solarian League, a bright new day in which all the hopes for which they have fought and died - hey, stop laughing! - will finally come true.

Plenty of people are sick and tired of it, and plenty of them will have the means and the will to make something else of it. But they're not going to make another Solarian League of it. It's had no spirit to it but the expectation that it will be there. Break the expectation and something else will come of it - a lot of littler somethings, things small enough to wrap patriotism around.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

phillies wrote:One can readily think of a large nation that some time back managed to lose battle after battle and have a massively corrupt leadership. And then there was a meeting of The Young Officers and an extended process that changed matters. One might propose that the author has put this shotgun on the wall, almost as clearly as the Tennis Court and Rob S Pierre.

We must wait to see if there is an Officers Association (All Services) with elected office-holders, and if one of the mandarins decides to use it as a parking slot for some cronies in need of sinecures, at which point (i) they lose the election due to the young officers organizing, (ii) they win via corruption, leading to disaffection, or (iii) they lose despite corruption, and are installed via mandarin decree, leading to serious disaffection between the military and the mandarins.

I think it unlikely that a) there is an Officers Association (largely because of the split between BF and FF and the Marines) and that fact that many of the (particularly) junior officers are scattered all over the League, Verge, and protectorates and b) that even if there was such a beast that the mandarins would attempt to park any cronies there. Since it is an officers association, the members have to be officers, and the mandarins deal with the military through the CNO. Therefore they are unlikely to have uniformed cronies that need to be parked anywhere.

Well, that is how it worked in the historical example. The Mandarins presumably would deal with the hypothetical Officer Club through its chosen leaders.

phillies wrote:Well, that is how it worked in the historical example. The Mandarins presumably would deal with the hypothetical Officer Club through its chosen leaders.

HouseofSteel wrote: The problem is that one cannot draw too tight a parallel between the economy and society of the Star Kingdom of Manticore and historical experience. There are parallels, of course; don’t get me wrong. But there are also ways in which I have deliberately “broken” the historical model by altering bits and pieces of it.

By this statement David is telling us that he has deliberately broken the historical model - and if you believe it was only in the economy and society of Manticore, I have some really neat bottom land for sale. I just won't tell you what it is on the bottom of.

I find myself wondering just how much penetration of the League's own military someone like Kolokoltzov would have had.

It would only make sense that he have his own feelers out there, given the bazintine world that the SLN's senior officer corp inhabits.

But all we really have evidence for is his dealings with Rajani and Kingsford that I can recall.

Don

That we have been shown (so far).

Does that sound like a "tum-te-tum" possibility? Only rfc knows, and it takes him a number of books to pass his hints on... sometimes a large number of books (I hear a ha-ha-ha echoing in a long dark corridor, somewhere...).

n7axw wrote:I find myself wondering just how much penetration of the League's own military someone like Kolokoltzov would have had.

It would only make sense that he have his own feelers out there, given the bazintine world that the SLN's senior officer corp inhabits.

But all we really have evidence for is his dealings with Rajani and Kingsford that I can recall.

Don

I actually doubt he had many at all. When Rajani found out one of his minions was talking to Kolokoltzov, that individual would have suffered a career mishap that would have discouraged anyone else from talking to him. The mishap would have included no further promotions, and exile somewhere as far as possible from Old Sol, which means his usefulness to a mandarin would have been virtually nil.

My reference is to 1952 and the Egyptian Colonels' Coup.

phillies wrote:My reference is to 1952 and the Egyptian Colonels' Coup.

Small country, easy communication between the colonels, easy coordination. Totally unlike the SL.