Topic: No Reunification War? That's Good, Right? (Read 24669 times)

namar13766 · « **on:** March 23, 2022, 02:28:40 PM »

My idea for an AU, fused from a couple of tribbles by Drakensis over on the BT forums.

During the Davion Civil War, the Outer March decides to break away from the Federated Suns, with the Prince on Filtvet feeling that his worlds are no longer receiving any benefits from House Davion, while all factions are demanding resources from him.

Without enough heavy industry of their own, House Esteban establishes trading ties with the Taurians, the United Hindu Collective, and the Outworlds Alliance. After winning, Alexander Davion negotiates a peaceful secession of the Outer March, as it was an overall drain on the FedSuns, and he is exhausted by having to defeat the other Marches. The region becomes a refuge for many unhappy with the stronger grip House Davion has over the Suns.

Taurian industries, with a much larger market to work with, enter a decades long boom, particularly in terms of military production. Looking outwards, they establish new colonies, expanding towards what would be the Tortuga Dominions and the Aurigan Coalition in OTL.

As the Star League comes together, the prospect of bringing the Periphery in by force was raised and narrowly turned down. The projected expense was deemed to be directly against the principle of reducing the drain of constant military expenses. And besides, House Amaris was pro-Star League and probably only needed a little more time and a comparatively trivial financial investment to sway the Rim Worlds Republic into joining the Star League. One at a time, the other states would surely follow through.

The HAF wasn't entirely folded into the SLDF, but did hand control of their border worlds over to the SLDF First Army, which also took over all other member-state world garrison posts within one jump of the Hegemony. Gradually five further armies expanded out to similarly control both sides of all the Star League's internal borders. This didn't keep the SLDF entirely out action - skirmishes between 'bandits' along the borders took a while to die down. As this progressed, the process freed the House Armies to secure their own interiors, their periphery borders and to scale back to 'peace-time' strength.

As the economy slowly stabilized, the Star League looked for new frontiers and found them in the periphery: new colony regions were established outside the Federated Suns, Free Worlds League and Draconis Combine and opened to colonists from anywhere in the Star League. This also contributed to isolating the periphery realms from the rest of the Inner Sphere. As a result, when Gregory Amaris requested military assistance against dissidents in the Rim Worlds Republic, shortly before the end of the century, it was years before the other Periphery states were able to confirm that Star League supplies and military advisors were propping up Amaris and funding his employment of mercenaries and 'mercenaries' drawn from House armies eager to blood a new generation of young soldiers.

The result was all but inevitable: Gregory Amaris managed to live long enough to sign the admission of the Rim Worlds Republic to the Star League, although an assassin saw that it was his son who became the seventh member of the Star League Council. The SLDF's 7th Army (and associated fleet) secured the border between Lyran Commonwealth and Rim Worlds Republic - and unofficially provided a strong arm for the still shaky House Amaris.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the remaining Periphery realms realized that any internal or external conflict could be used to justify Star League intervention. Further, they were increasingly surrounded. Any spark along their borders could lead to encroachment. They forced their economies into overdrive to try to expand their own borders and increase their economic might to potentially resist SLDF invasions. In the Outworlds the weak government teetered on the edge of breakdown under the pressure of this, kept from collapse only by the outside threat.

And in the new colonial regions, colonists from rival member-states began to quarrel, leading to reaction forces from the SLDF and nearby houses to step in.

After forty years, the Star League is stronger than ever... and the peace that it promised is more fragile as well.

Takiro · « **Reply #1 on:** March 24, 2022, 04:53:25 PM »

I did see these tribbles namar and what you have jammed together is interesting. Essentially two blocs are established with a more powerful and central Star League being opposed by a crescent shaped Periphery Coalition stretching from the Outworlds Alliance to the Magistracy of Canopus. The Taurian Concordat sort of becomes the Terran Hegemony of the Periphery states when you think about it. Even being bolstered by an aerospace strong United Hindu Collective and an expansive Filtvet Coalition I'd still say they are badly outmatched in terms of sheer demographics.

However, a fun culmination of this could come from Stefan Amaris -the HERO! As the Star League begins an all-out conquest to unite all of humanity under aegis of General Kerensky the Usurper launches his Coup thus insuring the Periphery's independence.

namar13766 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 25, 2022, 01:41:04 PM »

There are plenty of other butterflies I intended to have due to the changes.

The OWA is more Solarpunk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Ng5ZvrDm4) than anarcho-retro-primitivist.

---

In the Star League, Military action is rarely overt, as diplomats maintain an appearance of civility while "rogue insurgents" are dealt with by "police actions" among the New Colony Regions and "unsanctioned criminals" are eliminated with "unfortunately" too little evidence to identify them. Direct conflict between units of major powers gets very little press time. Actual direct conflicts (in the various New Colony Regions) are just "tragic mistakes during joint training exercises," after all. When opposing advisors meet in "indirect wars," well, neither major power tends to advertise exactly whom their advisors fought in that battle.

Disputes over rich resources or consumer markets in the New Colony Regions usually involve creation of civil wars, coups, rebellions, etc. to overthrow a government that won't accept the trade deals a major power is recommending. Since many nations are getting very cynical about this process, "advisors" and "volunteer units" from major powers are often "loaned" to the favored side to "stiffen its resolve." When the presence of military advisors gets one sided (like in Vietnam, where the US "advisor" presence was very large), the fighting can get very hard due to outrage of loyalist groups. When the advisors of two major powers are present and in opposition, the natives tends to be very blasé about the whole fight and let the advisors battle it out. This is actually where the largest battles between major powers occur. Live-fire multirole operability evaluations under adverse field conditions are another accepted practice to stress test new technology and tactics. Yet somehow the impression the public has is that all is peaceful between the major powers. On the other hand, it almost goes without saying that soldiers have raised cynicism to an art form, but I'll say it again.

The War of Takiro's Fraud is still going to heavily strain the Star League, but not for the reason you think.

Takiro · « **Reply #3 on:** March 25, 2022, 08:14:31 PM »

I was thinking about the Outworld March and what it might look like after its secession.

Outback Association
Founded by First Marshal Juno Esteban this expansive new Periphery is underdeveloped. While rich in natural resources its worlds lack the populace or the technology to properly extract them. Agriculture is the primary industry of these rural systems who can rely on some monies from exports of food stuffs to their fellow Periphery realms. However, these frontier planets often contend with renegades from the Davion Civil War. The situation has grown worse since many fled to this region following hostilities. The First Marshal and his Deputies continuously patrol the vast Association attempting to maintain order.

namar13766 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 25, 2022, 09:52:38 PM »

I have already decided I am going to make this something the RWR will use.

Quote

The term ‘organic drone’ was both intended to dehumanize the whole process to make it more palatable and those involved consider it more accurate term than the alternative and don’t actually care about this humanity thing. Nine year old children are born in an iron womb analogue and subjected to from birth to a rigorous program of mental, physical, and neurochemical conditioning. Though they share genetic makeup of humans, those running the program argue that the comparison isn’t accurate, as the process strips them of any sense of individuality, or any real concept of freewill or creativity. The entirety of their being is subsumed into being a control system for an interface cockpit equipped battlemech or ASF. They wouldn’t even know how to begin to operate outside the confines of their cockpit. They follow the orders of their handlers without question and to the letter, and they can’t even grasp the concept that defiance is an option. They don’t feel pain because of invasive brain surgery and their direct neural interface, tied to the interface cockpit, enhances their otherwise modest piloting and gunnery abilities to the point that one on one they’re equal to a typical clan mechwarrior. The program has proven less successful than hoped, as the vast majority of drones are unable to take the neurological strain of the direct neural interface, or are so damaged by the conditioning that they’re already braindead before they get to that point. They are recycled into the nutrient solutions used in the program used in the growing process. Those that pass muster and enter service have a projected lifespan of only two years, far faster than a typical human with VDNI will degrade. This is all due to their age and conditioning, as their brain and neurological system is not fully developed, thus degrades faster under the immense strain. Buffered VDNI would reduce the issues but would also decrease drone performance. Lengthening the production cycle would increase the numbers and qualities of the drones, but it is already considered prohibitively long. The low numbers of useful drones turned out by the program in 10 year production cycles can’t compete with unmanned inorganic platforms in sheer production volume, but each organic drone system is vastly superior to inorganically controlled counterparts. The fact that these organic drones never last long enough for them to develop individual personalities that kill them from fighting their programming is either a lucky bug or a well-designed feature.

Takiro · « **Reply #5 on:** March 25, 2022, 10:16:17 PM »

Interesting and horrible. Still, I always got the sense that life was cheap out on the Rim. I wouldn't put it past Amaris to develop something like this away from the prying eyes of the Star League.

How did you like my Outback Association?

Ice Hellion · « **Reply #6 on:** March 26, 2022, 02:32:56 AM »

With population not being a problem in the later Rim Worlds Republic, would they go that way?

namar13766 · « **Reply #7 on:** March 27, 2022, 10:38:58 AM »

Quote from: Takiro on March 25, 2022, 10:16:17 PM

How did you like my Outback Association?

Looks good. The 'Renegades' run the spectrum of people, from those on the wrong/losing side of a war, to those who didn't want to live under the distant rule of New Avalon, and so on.

Also, with the way the Amaris Family were essentially running the RWR as a fief of the Terran Hegemony, who's to say the Terrans didn't use it as a research Blacksite?

namar13766 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 27, 2022, 08:59:33 PM »

A large part of the reason why the First Succession War is going to be so utterly apocalyptic was that the SLDF and even the House Armies had grown to such stupendous, gargantuan sizes that the House Lords were literally unable to comprehend how vast they really were, and unable to conceptualize what it really meant in terms of actual destructive power.

It was all just numbers on a paper, or in a spreadsheet.

They heard things like "3% losses" and didn't understand that meant that the population of four or five large cities in troops had died to the last man, that literally millions or billions of tons of machinery had been reduced to scrap, all to take one podunk border planet that they'd lose again in a week.

And when they started to feel the pinch from all this economically, and backed off to go to full total war, they'd ground down their forces by nearly a third to as much as half- disproportionately concentrated in the weakest link: the Jumpships.

AND THEN they looked at how quickly their enemies were rebuilding, and decided to start reducing factories and mines and bases and cities instead of capturing them for their own use, and broke out the nukes, the bioweapons, the chemical attacks- all the forbidden Weapons, as it were.

For how repugnant the Kentares IV massacre was, it really wasn't even a particularly bad massacre by the standards of the 1SW and 2SW. Those wars saw entire worlds die and vanish off the map, many of which were heavily populated with billions of people, like New Dallas.

The only thing which made Kentares IV stand out was that it was visceral, with DCMS soldiers going house to house and killing people personally. Not its scope or that it was a massacre at all.

namar13766 · « **Reply #9 on:** March 28, 2022, 01:56:48 PM »

I'm using this to describe the War of Sundering AKA What happens when you combine the death and devastation of the First and Second Succession Wars, and compressing events to make them play out over merely 7 years.

---

Put simply, 80 out of a hundred people died.

That means 20 out of a hundred lived.

1 in 5 survived.

These numbers are easily spoken, because numbers are simple and clean.

Numbers are not vaporized too quickly to understand what is happening; or badly burned but left to perish in unspeakable anguish over a few remaining hours of life; or crippled and forced into an unequal struggle for survival in a newly hostile world, untreated wounds bringing pain at every step in their last days or weeks of existence. Numbers do not weep over dead friends family; numbers do not wander uncomprehendingly through the ruins of what had been their world; numbers are not forced to do dreadful things to survive. Numbers are not cast down from the heights of easy lives in an advanced technological civilization to labor unceasingly to live in a world turned into an Iron Age hell.

Numbers do not suffer. People did. Each of those 80 in a 100 who died suffered in their own ways, and each of those 1in 5 who survived knew the anguish of dead friends and family, wondered why they had been chosen to survive when so many for whom they had for cared had not been so fortunate.

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Author Topic: No Reunification War? That's Good, Right? (Read 24669 times)

namar13766

No Reunification War? That's Good, Right?

Takiro

Re: No Reunification War? That's Good, Right?

namar13766

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Takiro

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namar13766

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Takiro

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Ice Hellion

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namar13766

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namar13766

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namar13766

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