How to downgrade the fleet without upsetting the public?

Sigs wrote:When the media is unleashed into the corps of the League and they view all of it's deep dark secrets people will demand action if for no other reason than to reconcile their image of themselves with what their nation really did with their blessing.

kzt wrote:Your confidence in the media is charming. Not based on any evidence in David's books, but charming.

Not only that, but the astonishing confidence that the people will believe something in the media that does not reconcile with their self image and as a result demand action from the government. It is more likely that they will demand that the media change or change what media they absorb.

KZT: I moved your wandering apostrophe.

tlb wrote:Not only that, but the astonishing confidence that the people will believe something in the media that does not reconcile with their self image and as a result demand action from the government. It is more likely that they will demand that the media change or change what media they absorb.

KZT: I moved your wandering apostrophe.

I'm reminded of what Eric Flint said, I think at Honorcon. "Normal people ask about the facts. Stalinists ask what does the party think."

The SL media in the Honroverse are Stalinists. They only talk about what the SL DoE tells them to talk about, and only tell the SL official line. In contrast, the SEM media are just scumbags.

And no problem.

tlb wrote:Not only that, but the astonishing confidence that the people will believe something in the media that does not reconcile with their self image and as a result demand action from the government. It is more likely that they will demand that the media change or change what media they absorb.

kzt wrote:I'm reminded of what Eric Flint said, I think at Honorcon. "Normal people ask about the facts. Stalinists ask what does the party think."

The SL media in the Honorverse are Stalinists. They only talk about what the SL DoE tells them to talk about, and only tell the SL official line. In contrast, the SEM media are just scumbags.

And no problem.

What will happen with the Education bureaucracy under the reformatted SL? Will they continue in the same old way or will there be drastic changes to their authority and organization?

I am not sure that we have evidence that ALL SEM media are scumbags.

kzt wrote:Your confidence in the media is charming. Not based on any evidence in Davids book's, but charming.

When you let the media from all of the individual systems free to report things change. It cant be that the only honest and competent journalism is in Manticore along with the best commanders, best fleet, best engineers, who also happen to have the best civilian leadership...


With hundreds of core and shell worlds remaining in the league chances are that out of those hundreds of billions if not trillions of people there would be 1 or 2 journalists who are willing and capable to be actual journalists, and then others will have to either follow suit or continue to be a joke. The GA dictates the terms, the terms could include free unrestricted press to prevent another disaster like the one the Mandarins led the League into.

tlb wrote:Not only that, but the astonishing confidence that the people will believe something in the media that does not reconcile with their self image and as a result demand action from the government. It is more likely that they will demand that the media change or change what media they absorb.

KZT: I moved your wandering apostrophe.

You may have a point except they just had the rug pulled from under them. On November 17 1921 the RMN was a piece of crap navy serving a bunch of barbarians out in the middle of nowhere fighting a war with another bunch of barbarians. Both those barbarians were so technologically inferior, intellectually inferior, industrially inferior and were just backwards in every way possible. On November 17 1921 the SL was the biggest and most powerful nation in human existence, the SLN was the most powerful fleet in history and could take all other navies combined without breaking a sweat because they are the most advanced, best trained, best led and just special navy.

In January 1923 the SLN was completely and without a shadow of a doubt beaten by the navies they laughed at, the League had attacked and murdered many of it's own civilians as a way to punish those systems for leaving. In January 1923 the League was beaten down and the sense of invincibility is gone. The nations and navies they felt so superior to were dictating terms to the League in the League's capital. Mandarins were worried about people starting to ask questions, well what happens when they are removed from the equation and they are removed from the top of the League's media?


They wont be able to go back to the way things were for decades because the SLN while still the largest navy in existence is now at most the 6th strongest in the Galaxy simply because it is much larger than any other navy that doesn't belong to the GA. The civilians will be demanding answers, they will want to know what happened to lead to their predicament or if they don't change their view they will shrink even further as the League starts to lose systems by the hundreds... systems whose people will want to form nations that can actually protect it's members rather than lie to it's people and attack it's people for daring to not want to participate in war crimes.

tlb wrote:What will happen with the Education bureaucracy under the reformatted SL? Will they continue in the same old way or will there be drastic changes to their authority and organization?

I am not sure that we have evidence that ALL SEM media are scumbags.

How exactly do they go back to the old way? It's one thing for people to be lied to and then they go back to their lives with no obvious consequince for them and their families, its a whole other equation when they have to live with the consequences of those lies for the next couple of dacades at least if not much longer.

Sigs wrote:How exactly do they go back to the old way? It's one thing for people to be lied to and then they go back to their lives with no obvious consequince for them and their families, its a whole other equation when they have to live with the consequences of those lies for the next couple of dacades at least if not much longer.

How long will it take for the ‘stab in the back’ theory to gain traction? Weeks or months?

99.5% of the SL core has no evidence of all that crazy stuff people are taking about. And no, they don’t want to pay for it either.

tlb wrote:What will happen with the Education bureaucracy under the reformatted SL? Will they continue in the same old way or will there be drastic changes to their authority and organization?

Sigs wrote:How exactly do they go back to the old way? It's one thing for people to be lied to and then they go back to their lives with no obvious consequince for them and their families, its a whole other equation when they have to live with the consequences of those lies for the next couple of decades at least if not much longer.

But it will not be the "people" that restructures the bureaucracies, it will be the politicians and legal experts that redraw the new constitution for the changed Solarian League. Perhaps some of the same party hacks that worked at the direction of the Mandarins.

kzt wrote:How long will it take for the ‘stab in the back’ theory to gain traction? Weeks or months?

99.5% of the SL core has no evidence of all that crazy stuff people are taking about. And no, they don’t want to pay for it either.

I don't know, its one thing to say they stabbed you in the back in Manticore when they smashed 11th Fleet, its another thing to say so when they were in Sol demanding the Leagues surrender. The League had home court advantage in the last battle and they still surrendered, without firing a shot may I mention. The SLN outnumbered the Grand Fleet by 3 to 2 in the Battle of Sol yet they surrendered without firing a shot. Suddenly trillions of people are in shock that the League lost the war so completely, the war that their own government started. The new convention kicking off to decide the future of the League will have a lot of people asking a lot of questions like why did the League decide to attack it's own citizens, destroy the industrial power of numerous systems that had no interest in the war to begin with. Then they will ask why the SLN went from being top dog in 1921 to having 70+ SD's crushed by cruisers in 1922 to losing the largest space battle in history in such a completely ne sided slaughter in 1922 to having a smaller fleet demand the League's surrender in 1923... a smaller fleet demanding the Leagues surrender in the League Capital.


For the League to get out of the whole they are in they will need financial contribution from their member systems in the form of taxes, those members will now have to decide what they want in return for that financial contribution. It wont be that big of a leap from they attacked Cachelot, Hypatia, Maize, Snyder etc... to they really screwed with the Verge.


The League will need taxes from member systems to rebuild the SLN and the Sol economy, and those systems will demand accountability from the federal government if for no other reason than to ensure that their economy is not going to be destroyed next time someone disagrees with the federal government. People will demand accountability from their representatives and the League government or the League will lose so many systems as to make it irrelevant. When system government start asking why should we fund the SLN if the SLN will be used to oppress us at some point in the future, it will be one genie you cant put back in the bottle.

Then there is the SLN, they took the brunt of the casualties 2 million + prisoners, as well as 2 million dead. They also did the deed in verge and protectorates so they will be willing to confirm the truth because I doubt that the vast majority of the SLN is particularly happy with the League at the end of the Battle of Sol, considering they couldn't do a thing to the GA they still were allowed to live all 1.5 million of them in the warships alone with probably 10 times that number in orbital bases. Admiral Kingsford will be highly motivated to make sure that it all comes out to prevent the same type of idiots to take the reigns of the League and lead to another wholesale slaughter at a later date. As the SLN has the means to start cleansing itself from the infection that was the MA they could very well end up being the Guardians of Democracy in the League while they ensure that the MA doesn't infect the new government.

tlb wrote:But it will not be the "people" that restructures the bureaucracies, it will be the politicians and legal experts that redraw the new constitution for the changed Solarian League. Perhaps some of the same party hacks that worked at the direction of the Mandarins.

And how likely would it be that the member systems will agree to anything like the old system? It obviously didnt work because of its rather quick demise, not to mention the little fact of attacking neutral systems and its own citizens in order to send a message to the others. Either everyone in the League is braindead or they will wake up and make changes to avoid a repetition of the inpleasantries that could have led to millions of League citizens getting slaughtered by their own navy just to send a message. If the convention turns up anything like the League of pre 1923 then I would assume many of the non-braindead systems will secede and either form alliances/nations with their neighbours, work on joining the GA or build as big a fleet as they can. Either way the League changes or it ends up being much smaller and probably wont last long since the only reason the League lasted so long was because it was so big a smaller and weaker league that has the same government as the old league will not last long enough to seek vengeance.