Joat42 wrote:cthia wrote:If the Harrington Plan is to work, they must fracture a big enough chunk of that 3000. Systems are not going to split on account of promises. "You'll send us some ships when? Oh hell no. We are not going to be the next Beowulf!"
The Harrington Doctrine doesn't rely on the SEM/GA fracturing off League members. It relies on accelerating the existing stress and fracture lines that are in the process of breaking up the Solarian League without SEM/GA interaction.
Governer Barregos sees the writing on the wall and has been preparing his "Sepoy Option" independently of the SEM's interactions with the SL.
The Renaissance Factor is organized and planned to take advantage of and accelerate the breakup of the SL. MAlign agents and catspaws are working to accelerate the existing stress and fracture lines; causing rebellion in the verge, priming other OFS governors to follow Barregos' example, inciting the Mandarins and SLN to take the most counter-productive options for holding the League together, etc.
The SEM/GA is NOT the only factor breaking up the League; they are in many ways, just another MAlign Catspaw applying a sharp blow to the League's structure to accelerate the pre-existing fracture of the SL.
cthia wrote:What you mean is the Harrington Doctrine relies on Manticore being instigators in League business and politics.
Accelerating those fracture lines doesn't make any sense, to me. The fault lines have always been there. They would have remained for thousands more years because no system within the League would ever have gained enough weight, or balls, to challenge the gorilla. So, IMO, the Harrington Doctrine does rely on the SEM/GA fracturing off systems because...
1. Without their support their could be no coup. Where would it have left Beowulf w/o their Manty friends? Do you think Beowulf would have ever grown the balls to go it alone without Manticore?
2. I recall the doctrine originally called for the SEM contacting, soliciting and spiriting these dissenters away from the League. Hence, instigators!
An aside:
Is, and was, the League aware of these fracture lines? Or can we chalk it up as another fail on the intel?
Did you miss the memo about MAlign being the driving force behind the fracture?
The whole point of the Manticore - Haven war was that there should only have been one winner and then MAlign would have set that winner up to be clobbered by the League.
And then MAlign would have used that to further their plan to fracture the League by engineering events and by using a number of star systems they control or indirectly control to secede from the League and create the Renaissance Factor. This relied on that the winner of the Manticore - Haven war would have been to weak to be a threat to the RF or that they would haven been conquered by the League.
Now, the war between Manticore - Haven didn't go as planned and it seemed that Manticore would clobber Haven and still be strong enough to pose a threat to their plans, hence the rushed Oyster Bay operation to gut Manticore to make it an easy target for SLN.
And then Cachat & Zilwicki just turned everything upside down by making Manticore and Haven became allies which then kicked the shit out the SLN.
Manticore quickly realized that a war against the League wasn't winnable - not in the long term - especially since it could galvanize the League into some coherent action - hence Honor hatched her plan to fracture the League by stripping it of much needed income. (The League; ie it's bureaucracy, and the SLN are primarily funded through trade and not on taxes from citizens or star systems + what the OFS can squeeze out of the protectorates).
This brings us to
why the League can be fractured. The League Assembly and the Executive Council have become more and more paralyzed over the centuries and can't get almost anything important done. I guess this is mostly due to the sheer numbers of members and their different priorities. When there is only debate and no consensus for centuries people tend to get fed up and they only stay because of sheer inertia.
On top of that we have the League Bureaucracy that has grown as a cancer and more or less usurped the responsibilities of the League Assembly and the Executive Council because their inability to get their shit together.
And now we come back to the MAlign, their next step to push the League to the breaking point is to engineer the SLN to do stupid things - like Eradani Edict level stupidity - and at the same time make them look incompetent. And here we are back at the star systems that MAlign has control or influence over - they would declare that the League is a shambling corpse and because of this they will secede.
The MAlign is both cursed and blessed by Manticore at this point since Lacoon 1&2 will make the League fall much faster than projected in their plan, but at the same time the RF now has to contend with the SEM/GA stepping up to the position the RF would have had if the SEM/GA didn't exist.
I doubt very many in the League see clearly enough to discover that it's on its last breath since most are focused on their own little problems and pet projects. We have seen some examples of those that see clearly and have started planning for the aftermath of the fracture.
Regarding Beowulf; no matter which scenario played out, they would most likely be one of the first systems to secede because of their liberal and progressive worldview. Especially if the MAlign could have engineered it to push them to it and at the same time make the SLN punish Beowulf for it - which is pretty much what's going to happen but maybe not for all the reasons MAlign would have liked.
And the Harrington Doctrine, the plan that Honor described was to hinder "complete disorganization" by making sure that as many independent systems as possible can be viable after the fracture and trade with Manticore and each other. The plan came into being because if Manticore is going to to survive they have to help the League fracture first and then help friendly former League systems. If some of those system wants to join the SEM/GA, that's just a bonus.[/quote]
Manticore and Haven together are a huge bonus for MAlign. Together they can smash a real lot of the League. The more fractured it is, the less the Renaissance Factor will be noticed.
As it is, as sectors break off, the Renaissance Factor can bide its time, let the Mandarins attack other systems, and once the collapse comes, start to build. Remember Renaissance means "rebirth."
