Honor Among Enemies illustrates the relative ease by which single individual can conquer a planet with a few ships and a few thousand powered armored soldiers willing to break heads. The transtellars have paid their kickbacks to OFS so they could loot planets and enslave their people into debt peonage for centuries. But very soon OFS will be so preoccupied with Alliance squadrons of wallers knocking at their front door as battlecruisers raid their rear areas on top of the insurrections that for all intents and purposes of Office of Frontier Security will become an irrelevance. Most of what has been written about by Mr. Weber has focused on the positive of oppressed people throwing off the yoke of their transtellar masters and free themselves from the oppression of OFS. But one thing that has been repeated several times in the books is that the perceived invincibility of the Solarian League Navy does help to keep warlordism in check, and very soon that will be gone.
Say what you will about OFS, but it was the system that people knew. I want to know what sort of free for all will arise from its ashes. What is to stop an enterprising wealthy sollie from buying a few starships from Technodyne or Mannerheim, hiring some mercs from Mesa or Monica, blowing away the antiquated peacetime navy of a third rate star nation, and declaring oneself King? Especially when you consider that some of those kings will have the backing of transtellars looking for where to put the money they used to earmark for OFS. There are bound to be more than a few living in the core worlds. The Alliance Navy and SLN are going to be too busy blowing the crap out of one another to have time to take actions against that sort of flagrant conquering.
So considering the costs, benefits, and alternative investments what does the future of warlordism in the Honorverse look like?
