Loren Pechtel wrote:This thread makes no sense. This can't be settled by diplomacy.
The GA: If they settle it by diplomacy they'll face a new war with the SL once they've armed up enough to take on the GA. The GA has to destroy the SL.
The SLN: They hold their empire together by fear. If they fail to put down the upstart Manticore their ability to hold their empire together fails and their empire unravels.
For both sides this is a battle for survival. To fail to destroy the other is to be destroyed.
This is overly simplistic. There are at least three layers, perhaps more, to the League. First, there are the Core worlds who constructed the League to serve its interests by enforcing peace, promoting trade and commerce. The League is set up and structured very carefully to avoid having the League interfering in the affairs of individual worlds. Denying the League the right to levy taxes and forcing it to survive on a fee for service structure was supposed to curb the size and influence of the bureaucracy. By in large this succeeded for the Core. These worlds experience little, if any intimidation from the League. They are by in large prosperous and free. The bureaucracy by in large favors these worlds.
A second layer would be the shell who are full League members but are not as prosperous and who have seen their own interests sacrificed in favor of the Core.
Finally, we have the protectorates who are under the stewardship of the OFS. The resources of these worlds are systematicly plundered to provide a revenue stream to keep the bureaucracy afloat and enable it to expand. Man, if not most of these worlds are in the Verge which might be referred to as the outer shell. These worlds experience both economic exploitation and political tyranny. Domination of these world is shared between OFS and the trans stellar corporations.
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.
So it ends up being a quite a mix. For most of the League, the bureaucracy rules by at least tacit consent even though the political organs allowing the electorate serious input into the decision making process is largely ineffectual.
I think that the way the story line is going, the League will be destroyed, at least in current form. But I could also visualize the League being drasticly trimed back and held in check with Manticore and Haven surviving and even prospering by building a competing set of economic and defensive arrangements both in the Verge and the Shell with some core worlds added to the mix. That, as I understand it is the point of the Harrington doctrine. There is going to be lots of diplomacy involved in that. The point is not so much to destroy the League's existence as to destroy its dominance.
I am reminded in a way of Britian's struggle to survive with Europe over a period of time from about the mid-sixteenth century through the mid 20th into the beginning of the cold war. Her navy was a dominate factor of course. But so was her quest for alliances to counterbalance whoever happened to be the dominate power of the time.
First you have the Spanish quest for European hegemony which was artificially prolonged by the treasure fleets from the New World. The Brits used their navy to disrupt the treasure fleets and encouraged Dutch independence. Then a bit later begins France's century and a half quest for dominance. Against that the Brits ally sometimes with the Dutch and the Austrians as well as using her seapower and her colonies to strip France of her New World empire.
This period ends with the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815 which sees the rise of Prussia and eventually a unified Germany against which Britian allys with France and Russia.
The process is a lot more messy than what I have described. But the point is seeking a balance of power against whoever the dominate power in Europe might be at the moment, especially seeking to insure the independence of the low countries.
That is how Msnticore will have to survive against a truncated League or whatever might take its place.
Don
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