Rereading SoF, Meyers occupation.

SoF was a much better read the second time around. The battle scenes were still boring. I see no reason why Weber could not have had Captain Zavola's experience an "Oh Feces" moment when the SLN BCs rolled ship to interpose their wedge and intercept enough of the Mk-16s to survive with severe damage then need followup salvos from the remaining 60% of magazine capacity to finish them off. The prognosis that the SLN is screwed would remain but it would be more interesting.

One thing that struck me is that Adm Henke was extremely lucky that Meyers had an intact tradition of a Constitutional monarchy that could win popular support and a police force that was reasonably competent, honest and respected to maintain public order. Henke herself observed that she had very few troops to occupy the system. She obviously had no intelligence to suggest that the planet would remain stable. What is the Marine detachment of her CLAC and 24 SDs? May be she has two Divisions to occupy a planet with a population of 3.5 billion people. How would the storyline have evolved if the Meyers government and police forces had been utterly corrupt, brutal, incompetent and gone AWOL? Imagine the SEM needing to bring
in an occupation force of 7 million troops? Imagine how one such insurgency could derail the SEM operations against the SL?

I don't think luck comes into it in a large way. It's inevitable that stability is a factor in choosing a sector capital. OFS would not want to coordinate an entire sector from a war-torn, guerilla-ridden planet where the natives have motive and means to assassinate OFS officials. I can't see people like Verrochio and Junyan setting up shop on Mobius, even with the solid alliance between OFS and Lombroso's regime, unless they had no better choice.

We simply haven't seen enough of the SL to know.

namelessfly wrote:.....One thing that struck me is that Adm Henke was extremely lucky that Meyers had an intact tradition of a Constitutional monarchy that could win popular support and a police force that was reasonably competent, honest and respected to maintain public order. Henke herself observed that she had very few troops to occupy the system. She obviously had no intelligence to suggest that the planet would remain stable. What is the Marine detachment of her CLAC and 24 SDs? May be she has two Divisions to occupy a planet with a population of 3.5 billion people. How would the storyline have evolved if the Meyers government and police forces had been utterly corrupt, brutal, incompetent and gone AWOL? Imagine the SEM needing to bring in an occupation force of 7 million troops? Imagine how one such insurgency could derail the SEM operations against the SL?

Indeed.

And it is an issue that she will face when she reaches Mesa--further I sayeth not, lest I do a Cauldron of Ghosts reveal and bringest down the Wrath of Duckk upon my head.

Not to mention what faces Terekhov at Mobius (yes, the dictatorship was hated, that doesn't mean everyone backs the Mobius Liberation Front-or the Manties-wholeheartedly) and the forces she left in the Meyers sector to sweep up (I think Mike even admitted that she was lucky that there wasn't a power vacuum there). So now there will be a dozen? more? systems without SL control but what replaces it?

I know that calls for troops to the Talbott Sector have already been sent, but the number of trained and ready troops are limited and it will take weeks to get there.

If Mike gets Court-martialed (something that is yet within the realm of possiblity, IMHO), it will be because something goes horribly wrong due to her spreading out here forces and committments the way she has.

We shall see--the situations are likely to get worse before they get better.

The old Two Province system would work.

Recruit troops from one planet to garrison another planet.

Fear of what will happen to their home planet if they rebel or fail to maintain order will motivate the troops.

Hutch wrote:

namelessfly wrote:.....One thing that struck me is that Adm Henke was extremely lucky that Meyers had an intact tradition of a Constitutional monarchy that could win popular support and a police force that was reasonably competent, honest and respected to maintain public order. Henke herself observed that she had very few troops to occupy the system. She obviously had no intelligence to suggest that the planet would remain stable. What is the Marine detachment of her CLAC and 24 SDs? May be she has two Divisions to occupy a planet with a population of 3.5 billion people. How would the storyline have evolved if the Meyers government and police forces had been utterly corrupt, brutal, incompetent and gone AWOL? Imagine the SEM needing to bring in an occupation force of 7 million troops? Imagine how one such insurgency could derail the SEM operations against the SL?

Indeed.

And it is an issue that she will face when she reaches Mesa--further I sayeth not, lest I do a Cauldron of Ghosts reveal and bringest down the Wrath of Dcukk upon my head.

Not to mention what faces Terekhov at Mobius (yes, the dictatorship was hated, that doesn't mean everyone backs the Mobius Liberation Front-or the Manties-wholeheartedly) and the forces she left in the Meyers sector to sweep up (I think Mike even admitted that she was lucky that there wasn't a power vacuum there). So now there will be a dozen? more? systems without SL control but what replaces it?

I know that calls for troops to the Talbott Sector have already been sent, but the number of trained and ready troops are limited and it will take weeks to get there.

If Mike gets Court-martialed (something that is yet within the realm of possiblity, IMHO), it will be because something goes horribly wrong due to her spreading out here forces and committments the way she has.

We shall see--the situations are likely to get worse before they get better.

Hutch wrote:And it is an issue that she will face when she reaches Mesa--further I sayeth not, lest I do a Cauldron of Ghosts reveal and bringest down the Wrath of Duckk upon my head.

Without giving any CoG spoilers, I think it's safe to say that there's actually not as much need to bring in outsiders to garrison the planet as there is to have monitors to make sure the seccies and freed slaves that will be trying to form a new government don't commit atrocities against their former masters.

In that respect, it's very much Déjà Torch all over again [spoiler](with a little ST:TOS "A Piece of the Action" thrown in.)[/spoiler] n'est-ce pas?

namelessfly wrote:The old Two Province system would work.

Recruit troops from one planet to garrison another planet.

Fear of what will happen to their home planet if they rebel or fail to maintain order will motivate the troops.

This is already happening, it's called the Talbott Quadrant Guard.

They do rightly fear the consequences of Manticore losing this war and getting punished for allying with them. It's a damned good thing Oyster Bay didn't take place before the Cluster's annexation vote.

Manticore has acquired a lot of experience in dealing with occupied planets, ranging from San Martin to Masada, and in the middle, a bunch of ex-Peep systems that variously wanted Manticoran protectorateship, independence or a return to the Havenite fold.

Since Manticore isn't planning on keeping its Verge conquests/liberations, it's safe to say they'll try to leave internal affairs to the natives as much as possible and only intervene to prevent violence or Solarian/Mesan influences.

Of course, Manticore will carefully consider all future requests for annexation. In circumstances that benefit the Empire, they may even be accepted. But it already has two sets of provinces to integrate into what used to be a single-system polity. I think the Imperial Government would prefer that they go their own ways, on good terms. For if those systems remain friendly and become members of other multi-system polities that form, those friends can influence interstellar policy.

I had the same thought.

I have a feeling DW sometimes 'rules for the good guys' and that was one of these moments.

Not that I complain. I just observe.

namelessfly wrote:
One thing that struck me is that Adm Henke was extremely lucky that Meyers had an intact tradition of a Constitutional monarchy that could win popular support and a police force that was reasonably competent, honest and respected to maintain public order.

I agree with munroburton upthread:
Meyers was probably chosen Sector Capital *because*
of it's stable government.

HTM, PHL

Bruno Behrends wrote:I had the same thought.

I have a feeling DW sometimes 'rules for the good guys' and that was one of these moments.

Not that I complain. I just observe.

namelessfly wrote:
One thing that struck me is that Adm Henke was extremely lucky that Meyers had an intact tradition of a Constitutional monarchy that could win popular support and a police force that was reasonably competent, honest and respected to maintain public order.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Meyers was probably chosen Sector Capital *because*
of it's stable government.

At least indirectly, any candidate to be a Sector capital and/or nodal base has to have sufficiently stable government so that the necessary infrastructure could even exist for either of those functions.

But let's suppose Meyers didn't have such a government, and the only thing keeping the peace was the Gendarmes garrisoning the planet. Tenth Fleet shows up, the Gendarmes either surrender or get KEWed until the survivors surrender. Wouldn't the people who had been living under their rule greet the fleet as liberators?

Unless there were factions on Meyers that would fight each other absent an occupation force to prevent it, there shouldn't be much need to occupy any liberated OFS protectorates. The delicious irony of using the Talbott Quadrant Guard for such occupation as is needed is that the Quadrant was formed to defend the member planets from becoming OFS protectorates themselves. And now they've overturned those tables quite handily.

In contrast, the systems the Harrington Plan proposes to avoid the need to occupy are the most-developed Core and Shell worlds that have the capacity to build modern wallers. When they start hitting major industrial centers like Yildun, they may well need substantial occupation forces from the RMA and TQG, as well as the ground troops Haven no longer needs to garrison conquered planets.

The problem is that, on many Verge planets, there will be factions who want to fight for power once liberated. There will also be a (probably wealthy) few who did well under the OFS regime who might fund efforts to restore the previous order. And criminal types who will disrupt any weak government in order to produce an anarchy favorable for criminal exploitation. And foreign soldiers of fortune looking to be kingmakers, or kings.