Mesan Alignment post war

There is a question that keeps popping up for me, what happens if the MA decides to go underground indefinitely or changes direction?

What happens if they figure out that they screwed up, lit up the galaxy before they were ready, planned for 600 years and then ended up winging it at the end?

What happens with the GA if the MA really did manage to cover their tracks?

What happens fi there is no link between Darrius and Mesa?

In theory only a handful of people outside of Darius should actually know about Darius and those people are either dead or have been moved to Darius and I get that the SL and the GA have some competent and highly motivated people searching for the MA but what happens fi the MA had really and truly severed the link? How does the GA look like 10,20,50 or 100 years down the road when they know the people who caused so much death, destruction, pain and suffering are still out there?

What happens when life takes over and they have to shift focuse? Would they be focusing on the MA 20 years down the road if the Galaxy is engulfed in warfare with SL successor states?

What happens to the SL with them knowing they were meant to collapse and be replaced by the MA and they are still out there waiting for their moment? I mean how can the GA ever relax if for the next few decades they have to always wonder when the MA would come out of hyper with their massive fleet of SD(P)’s or LD or a whole new class of ships?

How do they go about their business and day to day life without going completely crazy over the fact that the people who want to destroy the SL, SEM, RoH etc… are still out there are know the fleet strength, deployments, general technology level and more importantly can have people in virtually every major government and military while the victims(SL, SEM, RoH, Beowulf etc…) know next to nothing about them?

The MA leadership might make a sudden change of direction and decide to revisit the 600 year old plan and decide instead of destroying the galactic order and rebuilding it they start building up their own nation 1,000 LY away from the nearest human colony, and start from scratch, the MA has the ability to build their new empire expand away from humanity and maybe the MA empire and the rest of humanity will find each other 800,900 or 1,000 years down the road when the atrocities of the MA will be centuries and generations behind them.

The advantage for the MA is that they can use technological advancements from the rest of the Galaxy and do their own R&D while the rest of the galaxy will know nothing about them, their technology, geography, economy, industry, military, technology or leadership.

Can the GA maintain naval strength for the next 100,200 or 500 years when the further away from OB they get, the less people might care/fear? The longer they go without incident from the MA the less they may worry about them.

What about the League? Most of their people don't and probably wont care/believe that the MA exists so how does that affect everyone else and the SL's actions/preparation?

How does the GA go about their business when they could be jumping at shadows from the dozens or hundreds of wars that are likely to happen in the centuries to come with the successor states?

You are clearly paranoid. It was just a few fringe crazies who committed suicide when they were found out.

Sigs wrote:What happens when life takes over and they have to shift focuse? Would they be focusing on the MA 20 years down the road if the Galaxy is engulfed in warfare with SL successor states?

The advantage for the MA is that they can use technological advancements from the rest of the Galaxy and do their own R&D while the rest of the galaxy will know nothing about them, their technology, geography, economy, industry, military, technology or leadership.

Can the GA maintain naval strength for the next 100,200 or 500 years when the further away from OB they get, the less people might care/fear? The longer they go without incident from the MA the less they may worry about them.

What about the League? Most of their people don't and probably wont care/believe that the MA exists so how does that affect everyone else and the SL's actions/preparation?

How does the GA go about their business when they could be jumping at shadows from the dozens or hundreds of wars that are likely to happen in the centuries to come with the successor states?

If you are suggesting that there still will be wars without the MA to foment them, then the GA will have no trouble maintaining military strength. In that case there is no need to focus on the MA until they reappear.

But for the MA to remain current with technology, then they have to remain connected.

"So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings."

However I would be very surprised if they chose this path. They have convinced themselves that they are on the endgame of their big plan and will ride it out. Only if those plans result in abject defeat, without revealing Darius, is there a chance they will retreat to lick wounds and plot something new.

tlb wrote:But for the MA to remain current with technology, then they have to remain connected.

Think about how the MA had so many people working for them who didn't really know what they were truly working for, how hard would it be to create an organization that gather intelligence, technology and has spies throughout the galaxy but the link between those spy networks and the MA empire is 1 DB every year or two? And the flow of information is only in one direction, DB comes in and picks up the intel and leaves. They could have two or 3 spy organizations doing this, and gather info from all of them. So unless the GA or the SL manages to capture the DB with the crew intact and their nano's disabled and a map is in the DB's computer no one can find where the MA is hiding even if they manage to disassemble one of the MA's spy networks.

Plus once Darius helps with the initial set up of the MA they can be kept in the dark as well and if someone finds Darius or disassembles the RF they get to Darius there is nowhere else to go. How fast can a nation grow if they have a plan and are highly motivated to expand? Seeing as there is no real opposition since they would be far away they can grow at a much faster rate and a two or three centuries down the line the MA could be 2 or 3 times as powerful militarily as the GA is and they could have an industry 5 times as powerful without anyone in the galaxy knowing anything about them until the MA decides to make an appearance or humanity grows towards the MA empire.

Sigs wrote:

tlb wrote:But for the MA to remain current with technology, then they have to remain connected.

Think about how the MA had so many people working for them who didn't really know what they were truly working for, how hard would it be to create an organization that gather intelligence, technology and has spies throughout the galaxy but the link between those spy networks and the MA empire is 1 DB every year or two? And the flow of information is only in one direction, DB comes in and picks up the intel and leaves. They could have two or 3 spy organizations doing this, and gather info from all of them. So unless the GA or the SL manages to capture the DB with the crew intact and their nano's disabled and a map is in the DB's computer no one can find where the MA is hiding even if they manage to disassemble one of the MA's spy networks.

Plus once Darius helps with the initial set up of the MA they can be kept in the dark as well and if someone finds Darius or disassembles the RF they get to Darius there is nowhere else to go. How fast can a nation grow if they have a plan and are highly motivated to expand? Seeing as there is no real opposition since they would be far away they can grow at a much faster rate and a two or three centuries down the line the MA could be 2 or 3 times as powerful militarily as the GA is and they could have an industry 5 times as powerful without anyone in the galaxy knowing anything about them until the MA decides to make an appearance or humanity grows towards the MA empire.

THe problem with the spy networks is that when (not if) the GA takes down a spy network (and they will be looking, using Treecats to vet people), the MA has to work to establish a new network that will pick up the slack or they fall behind the technology curve. Even with there existing penetration (in complete secrecy, they never managed to pick up on most of the Manticore tech - look at the MDM missile solution - definitely half assed compared to the Manticore one.

fallsfromtrees wrote:THe problem with the spy networks is that when (not if) the GA takes down a spy network (and they will be looking, using Treecats to vet people), the MA has to work to establish a new network that will pick up the slack or they fall behind the technology curve. Even with there existing penetration (in complete secrecy, they never managed to pick up on most of the Manticore tech - look at the MDM missile solution - definitely half assed compared to the Manticore one.

That means information and control loops need to be close. That's also why I think the MAlign has a problem going forward: a Catch 22. If they cut off access to Darius, they can't gather intelligence; if they keep a small line of communication, there's a chance someone will stumble upon it.

You can't control with a two-yard lag time. Not to mention that you need a cruiser-sized ship to make a year long trip and those might be too conspicuous.

Finally, isolating is not a good strategy. They can invest in a lot of R&D, but there's no guarantee that theirs will produce more results than the rest of the Galaxy's. Unless they're keeping tabs on the rest and stealing their technology, they may miss something critical. The longer this goes, the bigger the chance, especially for technology that they don't need (war-fighting).

Now, if they isolate because they've abandoned the plan and don't want to come back, that's a different story. Given enough time with genetic improvements, they may actually prove what they set out to do. So when contact is reestablished in a couple of centuries due to expansion, they'd just show how good life as an uplifted human is. But that's not the Plan (with capital P).

fallsfromtrees wrote:THe problem with the spy networks is that when (not if) the GA takes down a spy network (and they will be looking, using Treecats to vet people), the MA has to work to establish a new network that will pick up the slack or they fall behind the technology curve. Even with there existing penetration (in complete secrecy, they never managed to pick up on most of the Manticore tech - look at the MDM missile solution - definitely half assed compared to the Manticore one.

So they rebuild their network, this is not a race, the civilian technology 99% of the time will be available without even having to use covert means, for the majority of military technology it eventually gets to be common knowledge soon enough. What your intelligence network would do is gather information for all the nations, their military and civilian leadership relations, disposition etc... and as long as they don't install obvious self-destruct buttons in their agents they should be able to maintain their networks rather secretive. They will have problems within the GA but most places they would be gold, especially if the agents in place don't try to do anything other than gather intelligence and once again, if you place agents in the SLN don't give them nano's that kill them the second someone arrests them for treason because I feel like that will be an interview question with the SLN for a while to come.

For most things, national intelligence agency could actually do the spying, one key player in a key position gets everything they get, gathers it and gives it to his handler every few months. And unless something goes terribly, terribly wrong, the MA should be fine even if they end up a dacade behind on the intelligence gathering when they are rebuild a burned network. As long as they catch up and are up to date within 40 years before they decide to kick off a war if they decide to kick off a war they should be fine.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That means information and control loops need to be close. That's also why I think the MAlign has a problem going forward: a Catch 22. If they cut off access to Darius, they can't gather intelligence; if they keep a small line of communication, there's a chance someone will stumble upon it.

The MA in their new nation can know the identity of every agents, but only a handful of agents will know who they are working for, those at the top who die before they surrender. If one of the agents in the know is killed their entire network is written off. Basically this would be a cell structure like the once used in the revolt in Mobius, if one guy is compromised he can only identify a handful of people in his cell, the higher up you go the more can be ID'ed but safeguards can be placed there, the G intelligence services cant be all over the galaxy.

You can't control with a two-yard lag time. Not to mention that you need a cruiser-sized ship to make a year long trip and those might be too conspicuous.

Freighter. Freighter with a DB in its hold. Space is huge, sneaking a freighter that looks like every other freighter in the galaxy through the verge, parking it in an unidentified and unoccupied system shouldn’t be too hard, different system every year since I think there would plenty of empty systems in human occupied space.
You don’t control anything, this is intelligence so that you keep up to date over the centuries you are building up your strength, so you can take advantage of any technological breakthroughs in the rest of humanity while also working on your own research. Playing galactic chess obviously doesn’t work as well as they though, spending the next 600 years building their networks, keeping informed and building up their industry and military would work. If in 600 years they want to go conquer the rest of humanity they can do so, if they want to retry their plan, they can do so safe with the knowledge that there is a large MA fleet at their back should they need it, but that is centuries in the future, centuries that will separate the SEM/RoH/SL from the events of 1922-1923, so in 600 years chances are that people will have more pressing issues than to dig up who killed 100,000,000+ million people in 1921-1922 and possibly billions of slaves before hand.

Finally, isolating is not a good strategy. They can invest in a lot of R&D, but there's no guarantee that theirs will produce more results than the rest of the Galaxy's. Unless they're keeping tabs on the rest and stealing their technology, they may miss something critical. The longer this goes, the bigger the chance, especially for technology that they don't need (war-fighting).

That’s what the intelligence network is for, they keep tab on all the secret military technology and gather information about leadership of each nation, wars, international relations, everything else can be bought on civvie street. The MA keeps tabs on the rest of humanity while expanding, first they create a core of 30-40 industrialized systems over a century, build up those systems and expand from there. In 2523 they can be a nation of 1,000 systems with a strong central government, an industry that is properly organized for the good of the nation, and a powerful military. You have the same technology as the rest of humanity and whatever you have researched in the mean time. Technology from Manticore and Haven will eventually make its way to the rest of the government, technology from the MA will not make its way to the rest of humanity. The MA can safely plan, set up a schedule they follow and only they know about and launch a war if they so choose at the most advantageous time for them and the least advantages for the rest of humanity.

Now, if they isolate because they've abandoned the plan and don't want to come back, that's a different story. Given enough time with genetic improvements, they may actually prove what they set out to do. So when contact is reestablished in a couple of centuries due to expansion, they'd just show how good life as an uplifted human is. But that's not the Plan (with capital P).

Or in 600 years they establish contact with the rest of humanity, introduce their 1,000 system empire and 200,000 capital ships combining the best of humanities warfighting technology with the best the MA can get, and demand humanity surrender. They get to decide, they can abandon their plans for the rest of humanity, they can try again but that’s for centuries down the road in the meantime they build up their industry, population and military.

tlb wrote:But for the MA to remain current with technology, then they have to remain connected.

"So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings."

However I would be very surprised if they chose this path. They have convinced themselves that they are on the endgame of their big plan and will ride it out. Only if those plans result in abject defeat, without revealing Darius, is there a chance they will retreat to lick wounds and plot something new.

There's also the issue that while they may not know specifically about Darius a lot of deeply laid, long dormant, Star Line families in the various Renaissance Faction planets got activated. Some of those people are pretty deep inside the onion. If the final, ultimate, plan gets canceled/delayed for a few centuries you've got risks due to that activation. A family that was committed to keeping on as a secret Alpha line cell for a century or more might not be willing or able to back away from their activation and the effective power they've assumed within their world; might not be willing to go back to quietly waiting to be called upon. (Become disillusioned with how the plan went and decide to simply hold that power on their own ongoing behalf) And even if they are perfectly willing, the fact that they made moves during the recent unrest may put them on various peoples' radars.

Even if that doesn't lead to exposure of the deep cover assets that the MAlign was counting on having buried in the power structure of a dozen worlds it might still burn them one way or another so they weren't there later.

Of course the MAlign could suicide them all. though that'd be suspicious and risk exposing that all those suicides were linked to the MAlign thus exposing just how deeply they'd infiltrated various planets; but at least the dead couldn't tell what they knew (well, unless someone managed to leave a deadman triggered info dump).
And for what it's worth it seems they're already in the middle of losing quite a lot of their network at Sol, and even ones that evade the dragnet may get cut off from access as things reshuffle under the new constitution/government.

But the MAlign would have to open even more contact to infiltrate new Alpha sleepers to spend the next many centuries working their way back into the same relative position as the recently burned sleeper families. (And thanks to prolong turnover is going to take several times longer than it before; so if it took only 150 years to get in position before it might easily now take 450-600 to do; even disregarding any improved intelligence operations looking for such infiltrators.)

I believe there is a former world leader who tried this build up industry etc approach. Joseph Stalin. His motivation was perhaps more defending his country from capitalist imperialists, but there was perhaps also a long-term objective. In the end his state planning approach mostly failed, though it was good enough to stop the German fascists.

Sigs wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:
That means information and control loops need to be close. That's also why I think the MAlign has a problem going forward: a Catch 22. If they cut off access to Darius, they can't gather intelligence; if they keep a small line of communication, there's a chance someone will stumble upon it.

The MA in their new nation can know the identity of every agents, but only a handful of agents will know who they are working for, those at the top who die before they surrender. If one of the agents in the know is killed their entire network is written off. Basically this would be a cell structure like the once used in the revolt in Mobius, if one guy is compromised he can only identify a handful of people in his cell, the higher up you go the more can be ID'ed but safeguards can be placed there, the G intelligence services cant be all over the galaxy.

You can't control with a two-yard lag time. Not to mention that you need a cruiser-sized ship to make a year long trip and those might be too conspicuous.

Freighter. Freighter with a DB in its hold. Space is huge, sneaking a freighter that looks like every other freighter in the galaxy through the verge, parking it in an unidentified and unoccupied system shouldn’t be too hard, different system every year since I think there would plenty of empty systems in human occupied space.
You don’t control anything, this is intelligence so that you keep up to date over the centuries you are building up your strength, so you can take advantage of any technological breakthroughs in the rest of humanity while also working on your own research. Playing galactic chess obviously doesn’t work as well as they though, spending the next 600 years building their networks, keeping informed and building up their industry and military would work. If in 600 years they want to go conquer the rest of humanity they can do so, if they want to retry their plan, they can do so safe with the knowledge that there is a large MA fleet at their back should they need it, but that is centuries in the future, centuries that will separate the SEM/RoH/SL from the events of 1922-1923, so in 600 years chances are that people will have more pressing issues than to dig up who killed 100,000,000+ million people in 1921-1922 and possibly billions of slaves before hand.

Finally, isolating is not a good strategy. They can invest in a lot of R&D, but there's no guarantee that theirs will produce more results than the rest of the Galaxy's. Unless they're keeping tabs on the rest and stealing their technology, they may miss something critical. The longer this goes, the bigger the chance, especially for technology that they don't need (war-fighting).

That’s what the intelligence network is for, they keep tab on all the secret military technology and gather information about leadership of each nation, wars, international relations, everything else can be bought on civvie street. The MA keeps tabs on the rest of humanity while expanding, first they create a core of 30-40 industrialized systems over a century, build up those systems and expand from there. In 2523 they can be a nation of 1,000 systems with a strong central government, an industry that is properly organized for the good of the nation, and a powerful military. You have the same technology as the rest of humanity and whatever you have researched in the mean time. Technology from Manticore and Haven will eventually make its way to the rest of the government, technology from the MA will not make its way to the rest of humanity. The MA can safely plan, set up a schedule they follow and only they know about and launch a war if they so choose at the most advantageous time for them and the least advantages for the rest of humanity.

Now, if they isolate because they've abandoned the plan and don't want to come back, that's a different story. Given enough time with genetic improvements, they may actually prove what they set out to do. So when contact is reestablished in a couple of centuries due to expansion, they'd just show how good life as an uplifted human is. But that's not the Plan (with capital P).

Or in 600 years they establish contact with the rest of humanity, introduce their 1,000 system empire and 200,000 capital ships combining the best of humanities warfighting technology with the best the MA can get, and demand humanity surrender. They get to decide, they can abandon their plans for the rest of humanity, they can try again but that’s for centuries down the road in the meantime they build up their industry, population and military.