Really every faction? I doubt any of the Houses would want to join a Clan led League anyway. At least the Capellans and Combine will more likely to try to rip trhough their forces. The Suns are probably watching from the sideline hoping that their two powerful enemies get distracted and run through the wringer. For the Bears and Ravens I might see that. The Foxes are already splintered into their roving Khanates but I don'T see them fight each other because that would eat into their profits. War might be good for business but it is also bad for business relations especially when you have customers around the entire IS. The Lyrans are busy trying to keep their nation alive and while they might see the benefits they could probbaly not contribute much and the Free Worlds League has declared war on the Wolves with the Dragoons leading the way. Alaric will have some mighty juggling to do to convince anyone to join. And a few Galaxies of troops isn't enough to take on the entire IS regardsless if you have HPG's or not. This is not the Terran Hegemony of old.
The Foxes have split, Spina is i think, is anti League, but not stupid and are pretty much Protectorate in all but name, others are out and about pretty much doing what they want and some are annoyed at Spina, civil war anyone?,
Caps are going to be split, well at least their alliance is, by Andorians(?) in their side and Magistrix behind, they might not have a choice but to join,
Dominion has split,
Ravens not sure yet,
Combine, Yori/Gunji-no-brains split is on the cards,
Lyrans need all the help they can get and the ones next to the Dominion already has Dominion troops on one planet, and Jinyi on their boarder.
Suns might split over "wtf has the prince been and what has he been doing, coming late and saying sorry isn't enough, you aint our prince now, bye-bye"
TPTB are making new splinter-sub-divergent-factions, that are going to be around a while, they never said indefinitely and making pro and anti 3rd league versions of each faction
a) stops the players taking out their frustrations on the boards or at the staff or other players,
b) gives players more options on what faction to pick, c) creates new ways to tell the same stories, because there's no new stories,
d) allows players with a faction to pick i) pro 3rd or ii) anti 3rd versions of their faction, without changing faction,
If true, TPTB have made pretty much the best choice and shows how well they know us, we can get somewhat protective over our chosen factions and the universe and verbal in how we think TPTB treat them, while it doesn't please everyone, it has the most chance of causing the least backlash (happy customers buy more, if they can) and allows options down the road, 3rd league getting popular or accepted, expand it, and run the era a bit longer, not popular speed up it's destruction and move on, new faction not working, work to kill it off and now they can kill of factions without leaving as many people wondering who to follow or if they should just leave, or completely messing with the universe.
It makes sense from the "we want to tell smaller stories and more of them" point of view, a small faction loses a world, it's a big thing, a large faction has too loose how many worlds?, a leader gets killed off, maybe a huge civil war for a large faction vs a smaller one with a big impact for the faction, but little impact on the whole universe, and from a "we want to keep making money" point of view, the same one product can now be sold to multiple people when it covers multiple factions, a Suns book now sells to 5 people not 2, just a suns fan, pro 3rd suns fan, anti 3rd suns fan and 3rd fan, buys everything fan, I suspect that's one of the reasons house books can be hit or miss, a lot for a little, nothing for a lot, doesn't make as much profit as a little for everyone ala TRO's.
but i could be wrong, chances are I am wrong, but it does make sense... at least with how my brain works, better working brains may yield differing results, brains sold as is with no warranty implied or otherwise given, side effect may include but are not limited to sapience
