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The break up of the Solarian League

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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by Brigade XO   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 12:23 pm

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We just don't know who (beyond Barregos and then the people who are inside the plane because they are involved in the RF) have done any thinking about what is likely to happen if the SL breaks up.
Certainly there are people plotting to make changes of governments in systems that would see this as an opportunity.
It is possible that some groups, such as the nominal "friends" of Beowulf who are now maneuvering to freeze Beowulf out of what they seem to be planning for an alteration of trading partners and agreements may extend this from a more or less local ecomomic manuver to a more substantive alliance that would include military cooperation and treaties. That would provide another block of systems (and they may already be on the aquisition list by one of the RF systems) to form as a political entity. Not sure as it will take a lot more than economic maneuvering to shift from a bunch of scheming trade partners to a new multi-system Star Nation.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by Nico   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 3:10 pm

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A more appropriate real-world example of the situation in the Honorverse vis-a-vis the Solarian protectorates would be the British Empire, with much of the industrial revolution and economic growth in the Home Countries having been possible only because of the exploitation and ruthless oppression of the colonies.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by feyhunde   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 5:22 pm

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zyffyr wrote:You are both misreading his analogy. He isn't commenting on today.

Take the actual membership of the modern EU, and consider them as representing the SL Core Worlds.

But, don't have the EU nations as they are now. Have them as they were during the Age of Colonialism. The countries that they were controlling and exploiting during that time would be the equivalent of the OFS protectorates.



Thank you, that's exactly my analogy. We have the various nations in the Core league that are rich and powerful and have a facade of democracy versus a third world being exploit using age of exploration mercantilism.

The British Empire analogy works as well, but in the core world's there isn't necessarily a share culture binding them together like the home counties. Instead you've got chains of them, like Beowulf and it's daughter colonies. They've had more time since FTL made interstellar commerce possible to deal with the culture, but they had a long time to diverge in culture, and were close enough to stay in touch even at STL speed.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by SharkHunter   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 7:40 pm

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I think that most of the Sector Governors... don't give a s--- about the Core Worlds, as long as Frontier Fleet keeps their OFS Protectorates suitably cowed and subservient. They'll give lip service to the Mandarins etc. but the real problem isn't the sector governors anyway, it's the Transtellars. We're told that they have been in bed with Mesa for generations; one of the early battles for control of the Manticoran Wormhole was against Axelrod -- not the League as a whole.

So... let's assume that FF isn't thwacked immediately... You're a sector governor with no more carrying capacity EXCEPT with either the Transtellars OR Manticore. One allows you to keep your current corrupt rake off until things come apart completely, one essentially buys you off like they did the Confederacy and says "no more exploitation, but we won't kill you".

Which way each Verrochio etc. bounces is anyone's guess. Assuming that the MAlign doesn't get to them first.
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All my posts are YMMV, IMHO, and welcoming polite discussion, extension, and rebuttal. This is the HonorVerse, after all
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by JohnRoth   » Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:45 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:I think that most of the Sector Governors... don't give a s--- about the Core Worlds, as long as Frontier Fleet keeps their OFS Protectorates suitably cowed and subservient. They'll give lip service to the Mandarins etc. but the real problem isn't the sector governors anyway, it's the Transtellars. We're told that they have been in bed with Mesa for generations; one of the early battles for control of the Manticoran Wormhole was against Axelrod -- not the League as a whole.

So... let's assume that FF isn't thwacked immediately... You're a sector governor with no more carrying capacity EXCEPT with either the Transtellars OR Manticore. One allows you to keep your current corrupt rake off until things come apart completely, one essentially buys you off like they did the Confederacy and says "no more exploitation, but we won't kill you".

Which way each Verrochio etc. bounces is anyone's guess. Assuming that the MAlign doesn't get to them first.


Verrochio is in jail, and if Admiral Henke doesn't cut the Mesan transstellars off at the ankles, I'll be very surprised.

There are other transstellars that are based in the Core. Also, a lot of the sector governors have been very carefully primed to secede once Maya does.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by saber964   » Fri Jul 01, 2016 5:35 pm

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JohnRoth wrote:
SharkHunter wrote:I think that most of the Sector Governors... don't give a s--- about the Core Worlds, as long as Frontier Fleet keeps their OFS Protectorates suitably cowed and subservient. They'll give lip service to the Mandarins etc. but the real problem isn't the sector governors anyway, it's the Transtellars. We're told that they have been in bed with Mesa for generations; one of the early battles for control of the Manticoran Wormhole was against Axelrod -- not the League as a whole.

So... let's assume that FF isn't thwacked immediately... You're a sector governor with no more carrying capacity EXCEPT with either the Transtellars OR Manticore. One allows you to keep your current corrupt rake off until things come apart completely, one essentially buys you off like they did the Confederacy and says "no more exploitation, but we won't kill you".

Which way each Verrochio etc. bounces is anyone's guess. Assuming that the MAlign doesn't get to them first.


Verrochio is in jail, and if Admiral Henke doesn't cut the Mesan transstellars off at the ankles, I'll be very surprised.

There are other transstellars that are based in the Core. Also, a lot of the sector governors have been very carefully primed to secede once Maya does.



I don't think so on the other sector governors seceding, unless the might be part of the MAlinment or RF. Most are going to get caught flat footed and only able to use whatever FF forces are in sector when everything goes to hell. The Maya sector has been preparing for years and probably decades. They have the core of a decent sized navy and significant industrial base. With the help of Erewhon and covert support from Haven and possibly Manticore. Also the Madras sector just got yanked out from the SL and for the short term be protected by the SEM/RMN. What I figure is SKMy will shortly get a few dozen LAC per system for local defense. A short time later the RMN will turn over some of the captured SLN ships, this will mostly be light units like DD and CL's.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by JohnRoth   » Fri Jul 01, 2016 7:07 pm

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SharkHunter wrote:I think that most of the Sector Governors... don't give a s--- about the Core Worlds, as long as Frontier Fleet keeps their OFS Protectorates suitably cowed and subservient. They'll give lip service to the Mandarins etc. but the real problem isn't the sector governors anyway, it's the Transtellars. We're told that they have been in bed with Mesa for generations; one of the early battles for control of the Manticoran Wormhole was against Axelrod -- not the League as a whole.

So... let's assume that FF isn't thwacked immediately... You're a sector governor with no more carrying capacity EXCEPT with either the Transtellars OR Manticore. One allows you to keep your current corrupt rake off until things come apart completely, one essentially buys you off like they did the Confederacy and says "no more exploitation, but we won't kill you".

Which way each Verrochio etc. bounces is anyone's guess. Assuming that the MAlign doesn't get to them first.


JohnRoth wrote:
Verrochio is in jail, and if Admiral Henke doesn't cut the Mesan transstellars off at the ankles, I'll be very surprised.

There are other transstellars that are based in the Core. Also, a lot of the sector governors have been very carefully primed to secede once Maya does.


saber964 wrote:
I don't think so on the other sector governors seceding, unless the might be part of the MAlinment or RF. Most are going to get caught flat footed and only able to use whatever FF forces are in sector when everything goes to hell. The Maya sector has been preparing for years and probably decades. They have the core of a decent sized navy and significant industrial base. With the help of Erewhon and covert support from Haven and possibly Manticore. Also the Madras sector just got yanked out from the SL and for the short term be protected by the SEM/RMN. What I figure is SKMy will shortly get a few dozen LAC per system for local defense. A short time later the RMN will turn over some of the captured SLN ships, this will mostly be light units like DD and CL's.


Mission of Honor, Chapter 39 wrote:Which meant they were absolutely essential. When the Manties hammered the SLN into wreckage yet again—when the carefully primed "spontaneous rebellions" broke out in a dozen places simultaneously in the Verge as the League Navy's reputation crumbled, and when the score of Frontier Security governors who'd been carefully prepared by their own versions of Aldona Anisimovna followed the example of the Maya Sector and unilaterally assumed emergency powers in order to "protect" the citizens of their sectors—the men and women around this table with Albert Detweiler would emerge as the leaders of a new interstellar power.
The Alignment's strategists had picked the name for that power—the Renaissance Factor—decades ago, and the exquisitely orchestrated crescendo of disasters would "force" them into taking steps to protect their own star systems from the tide of anarchy. They wouldn't call themselves a star nation—not immediately—but that was what they would be. And, in the fullness of time, when it was obvious to the entire galaxy that they were simply responding to the catastrophic, totally unanticipated disintegration of the League, they would finally, regretfully, exercise their constitutional right to secede from the League and formally assume their position as a sovereign star nation.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by Brigade XO   » Sun Jul 03, 2016 10:06 am

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The OFS Sector Governors are being painted as bunch of theiving "middle management" bureaucrats who are mostly in charge because they are really good at working the system, have competent (and powerful) freinds in high places, and are really really good at being politicians with ability to survive dealing with some fairly ruthless people who are willing to let themselves be bought off and do the messy stuff.

Some of them are more than just competent to do their jobs plus take every opportunity to rake off money. Maya comes to mind. This one is taking both a deep personal interest and sees a way to become something more than just an OFS bureaucrat. He has turned his mind to actually setting up his own Star Nation and is building that. He also feels that it is in more than just his own best interests to create a working economy and funtioning govenment system in which the benifits of the system (or at least real opportunity) are available to people who are willing to work for them.

It is possible that other OFS people (the Deputy Gov from Saltash comes to mind) are comming or will come to the same conclusion and believe that they can change the "system" for the places for which they have responsibility and make things work better. Not better for OFS, better for the planet and it's system. Of course, that would also put them on top of the system's government but they see something better than despotism as a goal to create a structure that will stabilize things. At least locally. Creating a system which supports you being the leader without having to use things like secrete police or the OFS Interdiction Forces to maintain power. Think shifting Meyers back to it's earlier monarchy/constitutional government.
For those that can make the transition, it will possibly work out better since they "probably" won't have to fight their own populations at the same time they have to fend off the external problems that will come their way. These are also exactly the type of people who could make workable, lasting agreements with Manticore and the GA and sow the seeds of stability on the fringes of the former SL.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by Rincewind   » Sun Jul 03, 2016 7:30 pm

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munroburton wrote:
John Prigent wrote:Eh? How long has India been part of the EU? It has been an independent state for nearly 70 years so I think there's a slight flaw in the idea that it might now try for independence. Please clarify your argument.
Cheers
John


I think the thrust of his argument is that the EU contains nations which have previously ruled over colonial empires and that the EU is somehow using those historical links to abuse those former colonial territories.

Britain - Australia, Canada, India, rest of Commonwealth
France - North Africa, Middle East, a few overseas territories
Spain/Portugal - South America

Utter nonsense, of course.


That is NOT the analogy I was referring to. I was referring to the fact that, for many years, groups such as UKIP & their supporters were viewed as cranks (or worse) & that too many people, both the political & commercial elites & many ordinary citizens took them seriously as they could not see why anybody would want to leave the EU. They saw the EU as a great shining beacon. It was this complacency that I was referring to. Certainly the attitude of Kolokoltsov in that he cannot see any other system to replace the Solarian League has been echoed by the President of the European Council Donald Tusk's statement that Brexit could lead to the end of Western Political civilisation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-e ... m-36515680

I was not making any reference to colonies or former colonies trying to gain independence. That's a completely different subject.
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Re: The break up of the Solarian League
Post by jgnfld   » Mon Jul 04, 2016 7:37 am

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Rincewind wrote:
Nico wrote:The fact that the Core World populations generally enjoy such a high quality of life and are so convinced of the League's utter superiority in everything, coupled with their willful ignorance of the fact that life in the Verge is so much harsher than their own, means that even long after the start of the war with the GA many League citizens will remain convinced that no one would even dream of wishing for freedom from League rule.


To use a real world example which has been plastered all over the news I imagine the EU leaders & many citizens thought the same thing about the EU & look at what just happened in the UK.


I have my doubts that Brexit will actually happen. You can see the delaying tactics from even the winning side already coming to the fore.

But maybe that makes me "willfully ignorant"!
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