Post SL breakup politics

Castenea wrote:

wastedfly wrote:King of the pigsty is still King of the pigsty 2000 years from now and Kings like sitting on their pigsty thrones.

As RFC put it in Shadow of Saganami, some just care about being the biggest fish, no matter how small the pond, while the smarter understand that becoming a mid size fish in a much bigger pond is a good thing.

Oh do show all these "examples" throughout human history. You know, the ones that did not create an insurrection war. Actually, I CAN think of a couple where this is true. What percentage of this ever happens throughout human history? Very few. Only happens in Utopian panacea land.

Hmm how is the midsize fish faring in Ukraine/Russia at the moment?

Why did every single territory of the British empire choose independence?

Lets drop the naivete regarding "Manticoran/Andermani peaceful" annexation.

Happens only in Utopian universes.

Oh wait, this is fiction. Move along, move along. Nothing to see here. The kinds new clothes, aren't they wonderful? Yes, yes, why just this morning I was amazed once again at his clothes texture and coloring.

wastedfly wrote:Ok, here is another one.

Why has the USA not taken over Mexico? After all, Mexico is a pigsty by and large with over 250,000 dead in the last few years in their drug wars. Keep on going right? Go all the way to Panama. By and large those countries are corrupt poor pigstys that either still in civil war or who just recently stopped.

1) USA would have to admit that all the drugs trafficked through Mexico creating the problems in the first place are due to the USA populations avarice indulgence.

2) Mexico's "kings" would then band together and protect their pigsty. Kingpiggy's do not like being dethroned. The Mexican people like their cultural traditions and King Piggy's would drum up support via the "oppresser" card be it religion, etc.

3) Language cultural problems. Force everyone to learn English? That will take a generation or two. Sorry, no nation is truly a nation that speaks more than one major language. Why do you think China has had so many North South Civil wars? Language is always one of the major hurdles. Communication. Herd think, or lack of think as the case may be.

4) Massive financial burden bringing Mexico up to USA's standards for integration.

Countries taking over other countries do not do so out of the kindness of their hearts. It is usually due to some King piggy who is already a king piggy or who wants to become a king piggy wanting another hunting chalet who will drum up support with the naive public anyway they can. See the Spanish American so called "war" and king piggy's wanting Puerto Ricoan Sugar and the resulting cause for the American-Phillipino war where USA was about to hand the Phillipines back to their own king piggy's just as we had said we were going to do with Cuba, but because of a COMMUNICATION error, caused around 500,000 1,000,000 deaths.

King of Pigsty rules supreme throughout human history.
Humans do not change. Just slightly different disguises over the same proclivities.

I suspect that Canada, Belgium and Switzerland would all disagree with you about no nation being a nation if it speaks more that one language, not to mention India, which has dozens of languages.

fallsfromtrees wrote:I suspect that Canada, Belgium and Switzerland would all disagree with you about no nation being a nation if it speaks more that one language, not to mention India, which has dozens of languages.

Canada missed Quebec seceding by a mere 1% a couple years ago. A few years before that, the western portion Saskatckewan, Alberta, British Columbia had open debate to secede and either create their own country or become states of the USA. Vote was lost. Until 50 or so years ago was effectively still part of the British empire.

Belgium: Really? The speed bump of Europe? How many times in the last couple hundred years have they been "part" of a different nation?

Switzerland: Now this one has actually been a nation. Of course the majority speak German with a split between French and Italian. It is defacto German with the universal being English. Not German, French, or Italian.

India: Personally I do not see India historically as a country at all as you would Italy, Greece, Egypt, Britain. Rather the result of post imperialism. Before said imperialism it was never a nation to begin with, rather one conqueror grabbing a portion and holding on for a while till disbanding or being conquered. Splits South-North by and large. It was made up of dozens of warring states. Why England/France were able to move in to begin with. England won and stabilized the mess out of shear brute strength and then stayed long enough to institutionalize stability. Will it hold? History says no. Only thing holding India together currently is a common religion and a top heavy power structure. So, yes it does have several major languages because it was frankly created by amalgamated several nations historically speaking who have been mashed together and ripped apart dozens of times in the last thousand or two thousand years. Here is a map, scroll down to the bottom: http://www.mapsofindia.com/history/

India is certainly becoming a country with distinct culture and national pride: hinduism and an outlook of them verses us. The ongoing wars with Pakistan and China helps in this respect. Both never finalized. Probably never will if the powers that be in India have their way. Gives them the bloody flag to wave and "blame" for the officials social ills. Of course India still has major internal conflicts in Punjab and Assam due expressly to language, religion, caste issues.

Another nation that could be on the list is Indonesia. Of course it is a brand spanking new country made up of a pile of islands. Same goes for the Philipines, though Filipino seems to be taking over due to media predomination(TV print). Yes, most speak English, but none speak it at home even though it is taught exclusively in quite a few universities and even in high schools throughout the Philipines. Personally I think that is simply because they have not written text books in all those subjects in Filipino yet or more likely a cause of corrupt ruling elite. A way to keep the commoners at arms length. Force them to learn English as a step inside their social club. This is waning.

The Aldermani might start by annexing systems that they can get to without having to use the Manticore junction. We don't really know anything about the what lies off the map.
And what about those maps? What we have is the big picture type with Sol at the center which is updated as needed for plot line. We have some cluster pieces: Talbott, Silesia etc.

What does the universe look like to the Aldermani?

What is out there that they can get too without taking a run at Asgard and messing with the relations with Manticore?

What are at least the majority of the Aldermani systems (including those in Silesia) and what is around them? We don't have any idea.

If the IAE wants to grow, it is probably also going to have to build up its own merchant marine. Naval warships are all fine things to have but you need trade withing and from without the empire to stich it together and not get dependent on somebody else's shipping. They have the example of Lacoon very clearly presented. Manticore has crippled the trade and logistics ability within the SL and all those worlds it has withing it's influence of OFS. Even if Gregor isn't looking to take on SEM in the near future, he has got to realize that he needs his own merchant marine fleets to suppor the empire and keep control of any sort on the trade and the income it generates.

IAM is now in a very good position to replace all of the SL based manufacturing that used to trade to Silesia as 1) SL flagged ships can't use a lot of wormholes including the Manticore Junction, 2) Manticore is having to rebuild its orbital manufacturing base AND is going to be heavily involved in using that new capasity to both ramp up its own infrastructure rebuild and military production.

Even if Aldermani manufactures and trading companies have to hire some of those presently idle MMM freighters and crews, they are going to be filling the hulls with Aldermani produced goods. The SL produced stuff just isn't going to get through in any serious quantity unless and until the SL side companies work out some variation on thanshipment into SEM flagged vessels. The Aldermani yards don't have quite the pressure to go for full military construction and so they CAN start buiding more commercial ships. They now even have some newly acquired facilities in their portion of Silesia to do that on "conventional" design civilian ships and just start pumping them out. Probably as private venture based on government contracts as initial incentive. Government loans to acquire (fastest way to start a new or expand an existing) ships. Of course they companies also have to develope customers and routes. Initialy "just" work at replacing those that can't get products comming out of the SL or Manticore.

Messy? Sure. Profitable? Probably. A way to solidify the new Silesan area systems and build them into the Empire. Certainly.

Another part of the question is what can they get at and to without having to use a wormhole that will create a path to other source of trade?

What does the IAE have in the way of wormhole research and exploration? They have to be looking. Just about anything they may discover is going to be a major advantage for them. It certainly would be if it leads to any other part of currently explored and settled space. Even if it does not, it still provides an avenue of expansion to create depth size for the empire in a direction in which they don't have any competition and can essentialy settle on their own terms without having to assimilate an otherwise probably initial hostile population.