Expansion of the Empire: where to?

Talbott Quadrant is already in the process if a group of systems forming for a specific purpose into someting. The Rembrant Trade Union isn't a government but it is a loose collection of systems that have at least a common set of trade and other agreemtents to regularize trade and cooperate.
Not everybody, just that batch of systems that put in the request with SKM to join the Kingdom. There were a lot of differences between the governments of those systems and as we saw, New Tuscany with it's oligarchs was more interested in carving out special considerations and holding onto all of the ruling class's prerogatives and benefits than any kind of general improvement for the population that membership in the SKM could bring--and those benifits would HAVE to flow though thte oligarchs.
RTU was created to create not just wealth for the owner/starter of the Union and his shipping line. It was done to create a buffer/barganing position against the Transtellars and OFS which were working thier way ever closer. The intent being that both the Transtellars and OFS could be held - if not off, then from being able to jump in and take control of the several systems as indivudual targets which were meeting with "problems" for which OFS would be "compelled" to step in and solve for the systems and which the Transtellars would be brought in on OFS's coattails (or as the lead entries) do do so.

Van Dort, using his RTU, was the sparkplug and primary force in getting that request to SKM made. Whatever position and ultimate situation the RTU might be able to work out for Rembrant and the RTU (and it's "member" systems, Manticore offered a much better deal.
Yes, the system governments were going to have to change and though most of there were "generaly" a variation of elected government many were tightly controlled. That was most evident with New Tuscany. On the other hand, OFS and the Transtellars were going to make much more significant changes and there was neither a choice involved nor was there going to be any sort of real Rule of Law in effect except what was dictated by OFS and every single system was going to go into at least a century of essentialy debt bondage while the new Protectors essentialy stripped it to line their pockets and the abiilty to retain wealth, any power and any control was going to be really iffy since OFS had a habit of getting rid of people who didn't continue to cooperate to OFS standard and keep the payoffs comming.

Manticore was being offered an oppertuinity to create a constilation of cooperative systems under Manticorian Law (and naval protection) as a stable base market on the other side of their new terminus without the interference - they thought.
Nobody saw the Alignment (nobody knew it existed in the books yet) and OFS was at that point too far off and not yet ready to extend their slow absorbtion of systems into the Protectorate out to too near the systems that were in the RTU.
Manticore (it's navy, certainly it's merchant marine) and government knows quite a bit about OFS and the Protectorates and the kinds of deals going on and the conditions on Protectorates or those systems take over by Transtellers and the support of puppet goverments by Frontier Fleet.
The Talbott request is a lot more than just a beachhead in a iffy territory. It's a way to secure solid footing and depth of more than just presence around the doorstep of it's newest trade portal.

Brigade XO wrote:NOTE: OFS/SLN - NEVER - shows up in any discussion about anti-piracy or commerce protection in Silesia. While SL flagged merchant shipping routinely goes there, we never near of any SLN presence in a naval/military capasity

I'd forgotten that some amount of League shipping serviced Silesia. But when I went to look up the spot in SoS that I thought would imply that it didn't I instead found a mention that it did.

Shadow of Saganami Ch. 20 wrote:Yet that design philosophy had certain drawbacks. By pulling those systems up out of the core of the ship, the designers exposed them to potential damage. Manticoran civilian designers had a tendency to sacrifice some cargo-handling flexibility by moving things like fusion plants and hyper generators closer to the center of a ship, rather than leaving them exposed, but Solarian designers were less concerned, by and large, about such design features. A smaller percentage of the Solly merchant marine worked in high-risk environments like Silesia or deep into the Verge, and the Solarian philosophy was that any merchantship which found itself under fire should surrender and stop pretending it was a warship before it got hurt.
Which could be a bit rough on the occasional crewman, but there were always more where he came from.

Still it seems kind of illogical for a Solarian freighter to service Silesia directly. That's so far out that it doesn't make sense to service through hyper along; but paying the higher Junction fees of a non-Manticoran ship makes it less economical to take the League registered ship there compared to a Manticoran one. I'm surprised that it's more profitable to pay the extra fees and do the trading directly than it is to simply move Solarian goods to near Beowulf, Phoenix, or other feeder into the wormhole network and drop them for a Manticoran ship to haul to Silesia (allowing your freighter to return to the League with a hold full of freight headed that way, over a month sooner than traveling to Silesia and while saving the transit fees.

Still SoS seems to say that SL freighters do go there. So I'm not sure if:
a) They just accepted piracy in such remote high risk areas as a shame, but beyond FF's concern (however hard it might be on the crewmen),
b) They generally found the level of anti-piracy work provided by the RMN and IAN adequate, or
c) Even pirates and rebels were scared to attack a ship broadcasting a League ident code.

But I agree there isn't any hint of FF ever running warships into Silesia. Nor any mention of OFS ever considering attempting to deal with the problem of corrupt ConFed systems enabling that piracy. (Which, to my mind, simply underscores how far from the League this was; and how surprising that any noticeable number of League merchants tried to directly compete there.

cthia wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:I would politely suggest that "Haven claiming some of these territories for itself" gives rather a different connotation than "politely soliciting". So some misunderstanding of your intent seems understandable.

Um...why is that? Is it because of Haven's past? If I may politely point out, I thought I was the only one on this forum who have a problem with accepting at face value that the Havenites have managed to subdue their ever recurrent stripes. Here I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and discussing them like I would any other navy. Surely if I used that same phraseology regarding Manticore or the Andermani "claiming parts of Silesia," no one would bat an eye. Especially with rampant talk about "dividing Silesia" between the two of them sounds even worse. Now I'm confused, have they or have they not cured themselves of the Leopard's stripes? Or do I still have to dance around old sensibilities. Darn Peeps, I'm guilty by association.

Well Manticore and the Andermani definitely did claim part of Silesia - and ConFed had no say in the matter. So, no I doubt anybody here would object to saying they claimed Silesia.

Claiming territory has both the sound, and in Silesia's case the reality, of being a unilateral declaration that the territory now belongs to them. It implies that the territory was either previously unclaimed, or at least that the previous owner likely has no say in the matter of this new claim.

But using that same "claimed" phraseology about Manticore in Talbott would raise some eyebrows, because systems within the Talbott cluster asked to join Manticore. Manticore accepted them, it didn't claim them. (I don't know if anybody would actually comment on that phrasing since we all know what happened making it easy to look past the potentially misleading connotation)

That's why, especially coupled with Haven's history of the last century or so, talking about Haven claiming territory brings to mind unilateral expansionism; which apparently wasn't what you intended to bring to mind.

cthia wrote:Um...why is that? Is it because of Haven's past? If I may politely point out, I thought I was the only one on this forum who have a problem with accepting at face value that the Havenites have managed to subdue their ever recurrent stripes. Here I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and discussing them like I would any other navy. Surely if I used that same phraseology regarding Manticore or the Andermani "claiming parts of Silesia," no one would bat an eye. Especially with rampant talk about "dividing Silesia" between the two of them sounds even worse. Now I'm confused, have they or have they not cured themselves of the Leopard's stripes? Or do I still have to dance around old sensibilities. Darn Peeps, I'm guilty by association.

There's nothing wrong with Haven politely soliciting new members or accepting the. Dark Fall shows a case of a system that does want to become a member of a healthy and democratic Republic of Haven. It's Pritchart that tells them "no you can't join now."

The problem was your wording. Neither Haven nor Manticore are claiming new territories and if you'd used the same wording for Manticore, it would be the same reaction. Even the Manticoran Silesia is less of a "Manticore claim" as "Manticore claims it's not Andermani." The Andermani are the only ones "claiming."

To go back to the OP: this is not about where Manticore wants to expand to or even if it wants to expand, but what systems may want to join Manticore and whether they'll accept the request.

Totally awesome thread! So let me pitch my hat (thoughts) into the ring.

My thought is different, that is, why would Manticore want to expand more ANYWAY... now that there are several friendly and reasonably potent allies that aren't Solarian League any more. There are also systems that have been in both Haven's domain AND Manticore' domain that haven't been resolved in textev regarding the proposed federation. They mght be disinclined to be controlled by either, but not want to be orphan star-states.

Refuge? a fourth but passive entrant into the Erewhon/Torch/Maya polity.

Stuff towards Beowulf? Help strengthen Beowulf as a slightly enlarged Star Nation, with Hypatia, etc. and proximal daughter colonies, etc. For that matter, there is no planet with who Beowulf needs to expunge more rotten tomatoes than Mesa. They'd be in the best position to figure out what to do with any genetic-enhancement science alpha/beta/gamma lines etc., because they're not going to genocide the genies who already exist -- but obvoiously sans Detweiler control Something Must Be Done.

Verge-ward relative to Talbott? Have't figured those out! and I imagine Elizabeth et. al might have a few panty-knot tying diplomatic what-nots to solve there. But some kind of a "strong verge union" probably makes sense... so perhaps a slightly pre-eminent but stable star system becomes the capital system for something like the Maya Sector. The GA works to strengthen that area... so that we have quite a few nearly equal but philosophically compatible larger entities that aren't Andermani, Haven, SKM, or Maya related.

Interesting times, they live in!

SharkHunter wrote:Refuge? a fourth but passive entrant into the Erewhon/Torch/Maya polity.

Stuff towards Beowulf? Help strengthen Beowulf as a slightly enlarged Star Nation, with Hypatia, etc. and proximal daughter colonies, etc. For that matter, there is no planet with who Beowulf needs to expunge more rotten tomatoes than Mesa. They'd be in the best position to figure out what to do with any genetic-enhancement science alpha/beta/gamma lines etc., because they're not going to genocide the genies who already exist -- but obvoiously sans Detweiler control Something Must Be Done.

Erewhon, Torch and Maya are an alliance at this point, not a single polity. What unites them is proximity, which Refuge does not share. In travel time Refuge is closest to Haven and when the time comes that it can cease to be a military secret, the citizens will have to decide what relationship they want afterwards.

As was stated in another thread, it is not against the Beowulf Code to have the genetic-enhancement modifications; instead the Code penalizes the individuals who made those changes. Therefore there is nothing that "Must Be Done" (unless there are deleterious side effects).

tlb wrote:Erewhon, Torch and Maya are an alliance at this point, not a single polity. What unites them is proximity, which Refuge does not share. In travel time Refuge is closest to Haven and when the time comes that it can cease to be a military secret, the citizens will have to decide what relationship they want afterwards.

I don't frankly see Erewhon joining any polity, but if there's any it would that would be Maya Sector. They're already tied to the hips anyway. Same with Torch: I don't see them giving up their independence for the next couple of decades. Both would need a very strong reason to be more than just allies; both enjoy a very good relationship with the largest and most powerful polities, so they don't need to join for protection. I guess it would have to be an economic reason and for that the Maya Autonomous Regional Sector entity would need to be experiencing a very considerable economic boom, and that would entice Erewhon more than Torch anyway.

Refuge (Sactuary, Bolthole) are likely to join the Republic of Haven.

Where are the RF planetary systems in relation to the where the verge butts up to all the Haven Sector systems?

George J. Smith wrote:Where are the RF planetary systems in relation to the where the verge butts up to all the Haven Sector systems?

We don't know where each one is, with one exception. We also know that some of them are League members and others are Verge systems, so it looks like they are quite disperse, not a cluster of stars.

We know that Visigoth is 60 light-years from Sigma Draconis (Beowulf) and 568 light-years from Mesa. That places it very close to the Core.

It seems Mannerheim, like Mesa, is inside the volume of the League but not part of it. If the wiki is correct, Felix is also inside the volume of the League and it is only 10 light-years from Mannerheim.

George J. Smith wrote:Where are the RF planetary systems in relation to the where the verge butts up to all the Haven Sector systems?

ThinksMarkedly wrote:We don't know where each one is, with one exception. We also know that some of them are League members and others are Verge systems, so it looks like they are quite disperse, not a cluster of stars.

We know that Visigoth is 60 light-years from Sigma Draconis (Beowulf) and 568 light-years from Mesa. That places it very close to the Core.

It seems Mannerheim, like Mesa, is inside the volume of the League but not part of it. If the wiki is correct, Felix is also inside the volume of the League and it is only 10 light-years from Mannerheim.

I have no knowledge, but it seems reasonable that the Renaissance Factor systems would need to be in close contact to the Core systems; if they are intended to serve as nucleation sites for the successor state to the League.