David Johnson sez:
>The second issue is the `paper tiger' of the Vargr threat. This has not
>been credible to me since the days of the Rebellion despite the efforts of
>GDW. It takes a stable government to effectively wage war. The Vargr
>are *predisposed* to fragmentation and factionalism. Any good leader
>would see that the Vargr threat could be neutralized by fostering
instability
>in the Extents. Certainly such a task is not beyond the capabilities of
>Norris and his heirs. Corsairs may be tiresome but they do not pose a
>real threat.
Cynthia:
Well... (1) Ask the people living near the border (or well within
it) how they feel about continual hit-and-run guerilla-style raids.
You know, cruise in, lob a few bombs to temporarily disable local
defenses (lob nukes if the defenses are tough), land troops at the
target, grab whatever you came for, blowing away anything (or
anyone) that gets in your way, leave after throwing some more missiles
at defense ships to delay pursuit. If this happens just once a year,
your world is going to look like Lebanon and your people will have a
siege mentality -- if it happens every few months, it's going to look
like Sarajevo. And don't even bother having an economy. This is a
bit more than "tiresome".
Fighting Vargr corsairs is like nailing jello to a wall, or
finding Vietcong in the woods. Yes, they can't take on your fleets,
but they can cripple your civilian society and are very hard to pin
down.
(2) Vargr nations are "fragmentary" by the standards of the 3rd
Imperium. Compared to modern Earth nations, or the Darrians or the
Sword Worlders, some of those Vargr nations are huge. In Gvurrdon,
there is at least one multi-subsector TL-15 (!!) nation (The Rukh
Aeguezz). They could do some damage if they went "on the warpath",
much more so than the pathetic Sword Worlds fleets (TL 11-12) and the
two TL9-10 Vargr worlds that joined in the "Outworld Coalition" during
the FFW.
(3) How do you "foster instability in the Extents"? Vargr have
been living and developing societies to cope with their factional
nature for 40,000 YEARS! What can you possibly do to them that they
haven't already done to themselves at one time or another, and learned
to cope with? And what nation(s) do you start with?
- --------------
more from David:
This is not my sense of the Third Imperium at all. I always felt
that any grunt soldier from the Old Expanses would have felt just as
at home in a unit in Trojan Reach and a Deneb free trader just as
comfortable in the Solomani Rim. Sure, there was a great variety from
planet to planet but most of Imperial culture (which was the *only*
interstellar culture) ended at the starport extrality except on those
high pop and tech worlds that were the `backbone' of the Imperium.
Maybe the Imperium was also `ghetto- ized'?
Thus, TNE `interstellar' culture (Coalition or anyplace else) will
have its roots in Imperial culture. In effect, most of those `varied'
cultures beyond the extrality fence `gave-up' on the stars *long*
before the Rebellion even. Sure, *some* of these will venture to the
stars in TNE but *most* TNE interstellar culture will have an Imperial
(and technological) heritage.
Cynthia:
This coincides with my view of the Imperium...pre-Virus. I have
always envisioned 3I as having a unified "Spacer" culture composed of
the nobility, the interstellar merchants, and the Imperial military
(including the Scouts). "Beyond the extrality fence", most
significant worlds had their own, local culture, and most people who
lived on those worlds could care less about what went on beyond their
own sky (so long as it didn't affect them in obvious ways), and knew
about as much about "Spacer" (Imperial) culture as the average Joe
knows about the military culture or the life of a (real-life) merchant
marine sailor. The obvious exceptions would be Capital/Core, and
systems where exploitation of space is a normal part of the economy
(e.g. Glisten, any system with many large colonies).
You have added an interesting point about "local" cultures
"giving-up" on the stars *long* ago... presumably when they were
incorporated into the Sylean Empire, or when they grew beyond
outpost/colony status. This would be a side-effect (or deliberate
intention) of the 3I policy of not allowing multi-system member
states... so there is NO interstellar culture except the Imperial
"spacer" culture. Contrast with the Solomani Confederation, which has
large interstellar states with distinct cultures as members.
Unfortunately, what was destroyed in Hard Times and the Virus was
the Imperial interstellar culture. That has been utterly wiped out,
except in the Regency. In the pocket empires, and other places that
are reaching for the stars again, we are seeing the local cultures,
using the knowledge from the extinct Imperial culture, reach out
"beyond the extrality fence" for the first time in a thousand years.
The techonology *may* be initially based on Imperial designs, but the
culture will not. IMHO, the TNE interstellar culture outside the
Regency will not have an Imperial heritage.
------------------------
Mark Urbin:
>"You can't build a healthy economy based on scavenging."
> - Cynthia Higginbotham
>Can we call this one, "Trask's Rule?"
Cynthia:
<grin> I guess we could. I haven't read that book since
college... I had forgotten that was one of themes of that book.
(Gee, this list has only been talking about it for the last 2
weeks...)