SL Diplomacy

phillies wrote:The SL does not...Will the Mandarins have time to make this a correctable deficiency? The ISLN may not be effective against the RMN, but it may be an effective enforcer of Solarian martial law, you know, the Martial Law no where mentioned in the SL League Constitution, but, well, there is an emergency.

Well yeah. That's the question. I can see it going either way. We'll see what the man behind the curtain thinks.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

n7axw wrote:My point is that the League is only "imperial" in its relationships to the protectorates. We could also talk about the independents where there is no official OFS presence, but who are dominated by the transstellars who can call for OFS help to retain control.

True, but when the wheels come off there are going to be a lot of governments that are very unhappy with what the SL has become. They'll leave.

Also, when the wheels come off the Mandarins abuse of the system will become apparent and they'll be executed. It's truly life or death for them.

It could happen that way. But maybe not. In the Verge and the Shell, yes. But the Core worlds? Hard to say. For them the League has been a good deal. The Shell and the Verge are pretty remote and they wouldn't be unhappy with business as usual. After all, it's somebody else being ripped off.

Don

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I don't think the core worlds are gonna be happy about all the mass murder.

quite possibly a cat wrote:I don't think the core worlds are gonna be happy about all the mass murder.

If the SLN shows up at a neutral system inside the nominal edge of the SL (not counting the protectorates in the Verge or places in the Shell) and proceeds to devistate it's orbital and other spaceborn infrastructure as an object lesson for trading with Manticore and Beowulf, you may see a lot of SL members taking steps to repudiate the actions of the League.

To this point, we are never shown any League member governments who have made any substantive complaint about OFS's activities outside the League but that may change. The present situation had developed over centuries and, probably, it has been fobbed off as OFS just doing their job securing the nominal boarders and the frontier marches of the League by "rescuing" and then protecting all those incompentnet system governments who let their systems get into deep problems. Too bad many of those problems were manufactured.
Now, however, too many systems are or have been in rebellion against opressive regimes (either home grown or foisted on them by OFS directly or by Transtellars in partnership with the local dictarors or OFS) and all of this is getting press. There are SUCESSFULL rebellions, which -since OFS/FF hasn't been able to suppress them- have established new governments and a lot of light is shining into those old dark corners that OFS has sat on.

The amount and frequency of wholesale slaughter with OFS/FF complicit in killing hundreds of thousand and millions of local inhabitants isn't getting skated over any more. The various governments of League member systems are going to start facing serious questions about what they are at least knowingly letting happen -without comment) or in some cases perhaps supporting by their own policies.
Political change could be starting to put heat to system governments. That and their citizens are going to start asking how they- as both citizens of system X AND as citizens of the League- are going to be protected from what SLN is about to start doing.

Well, for at least the last 400 years the SL has followed two diplomatic directives:

1. Get a bigger hammer.
2. Get a bigger bigger hammer.
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It takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make war.

Brigade XO wrote:

quite possibly a cat wrote:I don't think the core worlds are gonna be happy about all the mass murder.

If the SLN shows up at a neutral system inside the nominal edge of the SL (not counting the protectorates in the Verge or places in the Shell) and proceeds to devistate it's orbital and other spaceborn infrastructure as an object lesson for trading with Manticore and Beowulf, you may see a lot of SL members taking steps to repudiate the actions of the League.

To this point, we are never shown any League member governments who have made any substantive complaint about OFS's activities outside the League but that may change. The present situation had developed over centuries and, probably, it has been fobbed off as OFS just doing their job securing the nominal boarders and the frontier marches of the League by "rescuing" and then protecting all those incompentnet system governments who let their systems get into deep problems. Too bad many of those problems were manufactured.
Now, however, too many systems are or have been in rebellion against opressive regimes (either home grown or foisted on them by OFS directly or by Transtellars in partnership with the local dictarors or OFS) and all of this is getting press. There are SUCESSFULL rebellions, which -since OFS/FF hasn't been able to suppress them- have established new governments and a lot of light is shining into those old dark corners that OFS has sat on.

The amount and frequency of wholesale slaughter with OFS/FF complicit in killing hundreds of thousand and millions of local inhabitants isn't getting skated over any more. The various governments of League member systems are going to start facing serious questions about what they are at least knowingly letting happen -without comment) or in some cases perhaps supporting by their own policies.
Political change could be starting to put heat to system governments. That and their citizens are going to start asking how they- as both citizens of system X AND as citizens of the League- are going to be protected from what SLN is about to start doing.

I don't think there will be an increase in idealism, there will be a greater realization that the GA can do similar damage to them.

A major planet losing its orbital structures would be in dire straits. If the first one hit also happens to be the home of a major transstellar or two, particularly ones important to the League, there could be some real action.

ldwechsler wrote:I don't think there will be an increase in idealism, there will be a greater realization that the GA can do similar damage to them.

A major planet losing its orbital structures would be in dire straits. If the first one hit also happens to be the home of a major transstellar or two, particularly ones important to the League, there could be some real action.

Attacking the planet of a transtellar threatening to trade with the GA would be a fair target, wouldn't it.

ldwechsler wrote:I don't think there will be an increase in idealism, there will be a greater realization that the GA can do similar damage to them.

But we already know the one thing the Sollies agree on this the EE Edict. While we don't know the exact wording we do know the basic spirit. The SLN killing a bunch of civilians is likely to upset the Sollies.

Of course, combine that with the fear of a GA and SLN raids, and knowledge of some of the GA's tendencies (at least before O'Hanrahan murders the GA's image) we could easily see Solarian worlds repudiating the SLN and asking for GA protection!

pappilon wrote:Attacking the planet of a transtellar threatening to trade with the GA would be a fair target, wouldn't it.

Arguably, but if I were the Sollies I would do my bloody damnedest to argue that neutral worlds trading with one side or the other are illegitimate targets and attacking them is tantamount to piracy.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

ldwechsler wrote:I don't think there will be an increase in idealism, there will be a greater realization that the GA can do similar damage to them.

But we already know the one thing the Sollies agree on this the EE Edict. While we don't know the exact wording we do know the basic spirit. The SLN killing a bunch of civilians is likely to upset the Sollies.

Of course, combine that with the fear of a GA and SLN raids, and knowledge of some of the GA's tendencies (at least before O'Hanrahan murders the GA's image) we could easily see Solarian worlds repudiating the SLN and asking for GA protection!

pappilon wrote:Attacking the planet of a transtellar threatening to trade with the GA would be a fair target, wouldn't it.

Arguably, but if I were the Sollies I would do my bloody damnedest to argue that neutral worlds trading with one side or the other are illegitimate targets and attacking them is tantamount to piracy.

In the past, there have been problems with this. Note the lead up to the War of 1812 where Britain stopped American ships from trading with the French. Also, in the same vein, but opposite direction, the US stopped a British ship to take off Confederates. That almost led to war.

The Mandarins may be outsmarting themselves. Yes, they might get some cheap victories. In the long run, they could get some real trouble.

ldwechsler wrote:I don't think there will be an increase in idealism, there will be a greater realization that the GA can do similar damage to them.

A major planet losing its orbital structures would be in dire straits. If the first one hit also happens to be the home of a major transstellar or two, particularly ones important to the League, there could be some real action.

The GA doesn't even need to.

The SLN attacks a planet for trading with Manticore.

The GA shows up, fires a couple of Apollo pods using only two stages (since the SLN hasn't seen three) plus ballistic (since the SLN can do ballistic there's no point in keeping it secret even if they don't already know) and fire them into wedges.

"This time it was only a demonstration. If the SLN continues to attack systems that we trade with then systems that trade with the SLN are also valid targets. I suggest you deal with the problem before we are forced to."