Anthony K. Baggaley posed the following:
> The question is- What would have been the course of the Rebellion
> if the virus had never been created? (discuss)
Part 2 of 2:
The first part dealt with my hypothesis for the central Imperium while
this installment details the fringe zones and other empires.
The four factions of the shattered Imperium concentrated their efforts
against one another and so not much was done to the seccessionists -
Antares, Daibei, and Vland. What little was marshalled to return these
areas to the fold was ineffective; Antares wwas able to call upon the
Julian Protectorate for help, Vland was mostly overlooked as Dulinor
spent his efforts on Daibei, which was pushed toward the Aslan Heirate.
Daibei gained about as much in this direction as they lost to Dulinor.
Eventually they stiffened resistance to Dulinor's attacks as they
increasing came into conflict with the Aslan on their opposite border.
Taking advantage of the Imperium's internecine wqarfare the Solomani
Confederation once again expanded to reoccupy the full Solomani Sphere
but went no further. For reasons not well understood the Solomani left
the Vegan Autonomous District mostly intact. The Aslan and vargr also
made small scale encroachments at this time.
This had the most impact on the area "behind the claw." After
initially meeting little resistance both the Aslan and Vargr met fierce
counterattacks from Norris' forces. Initially Norris was slow to
respond because he was involved with diplomatic negotiations with the
aim of maintaining relations with the Zhodani. He also had to contend
with an increasingly agressive Vilani Ziru Sirka which did severed
nearly all contact with the central Imperium, on top of communications
hampered by the effects of the civil war. Norris, out of contact and
unsure of who really was the true Emperor, established the Archduchy of
Deneb nearly a decade after Dulinor's power play.
The other interstellar governments (Zhodani, K'kree, Hivers, and even
the Solomani) saw the turmoil unleased within the Imperium. The
consensus seemed to be that this was a symptom the the unwieldy size of
the Imperium. They therefore refrained from seeking to greatly
enlarging their empires, especially at the expense of a impotent
Imperium. Additionally the powers began to form various alliances which
were aimed at maintaining a balance of power - when one seemed to become
too strong alliances were made to reduce that threat. Norris never
allied against either Dulinor or Lucan although at times he delayed in
assisting them in these alliances.
Events continued in this manner even after the deaths of Dulinor,
Lucan and Norris. Fifty years after the shattering of the Third
Imperium the known universe was a more diverse place with a number of
evenly sized empires, quite a nember of which were largely human in its
various forms: Solomani, Vilani, Zhodani, Denebians, and former Imperial
(Rimward Imperium and Spinward Imperium).