Comstar's First Circuit / St Ives Compact Representation ?

[Ran Felsner]

     Rereading through the Comstar sourcebook, I noticed that Primus Waterly appointed Gardner Riis the title Precenter Rasalhague, along with an appointment to the First Circuit.  This  left me wondering if the St Ives  Compact ever had their own representative on Comstar's First Circuit.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

St Ives Commonality's inception as a sovereign state isn't comparable to Rasalague's.

ComStar was the force behind Rasalhague's independence, and ComStar probably intended to heavily influence that fledgling state all along... even before they'd do exactly that post Tukayyid.  It makes sense to appoint a figure to coordinate ComStarry shenanigans in that region of the Inner Sphere as part of their primary objective of making sure the FC doesn't win the Succession Wars.  Much less so in St Ives' case as a FC client state.

[Nav_Alpha]

And considering the ComStar-FedSuns relationship post 4th succession war, they probably didnt even initially recognise then Compact as little more than a Davion puppet state.

[Frabby]

Funny enough, it arguably wasn't. Candace Liao pretty much did her own thing, and had to seek refuge with the FedCom because Romano was out to kill her. But as a state, I believe St. Ives was way more independent (and independent-minded) than, say, the Tikonov Free Republic, and relatively close to Rasalhague.

[The Eagle]

Remember that in politics, perception is reality.  And when the reality is that a small sovereign state's rule is married to a war hero and chief of intelligence for its much, much larger neighbor...well.  I'm not surprised other powers considered St Ives a puppet.

[jklantern]

Funny enough, it arguably wasn't. Candace Liao pretty much did her own thing, and had to seek refuge with the FedCom because Romano was out to kill her. But as a state, I believe St. Ives was way more independent (and independent-minded) than, say, the Tikonov Free Republic, and relatively close to Rasalhague.

I think it's FM:  Capellan Confederation that mentions Hanse wanting to finish the job on the Confederation sometime shortly before 3039.  He was going to march through the Compact.  Candace's response was, "I will attack the guts of the FedSuns if you do that.  Leave the Confederation alone.  They have enough problems."

[Archangel]

While ComStar wouldn't want to get on Romano's bad side, they would need to establish some diplomatic relations in order to negotiate rates with the Duchess.  However, while the SIC may be similar to the FRR in diplomatic terms, the SIC didn't have nearly the same political/economic clout that the FRR did (pre-Clan of course).  Similar to when Andurien broke away from the FWL (or other smaller independent states) the SIC didn't have nearly sufficient worlds to warrant a seat on the First Circuit and thus for most of the SIC's existence Precentor St. Ives would have merely been an ambassador to negotiate on ComStar's behalf in the place of the Primus (or a First Circuit member) when necessary.  However, during the brief period of the formation of the new Star League and the SIC's reabsorption into the Cappellan Confederation, Precentor St. Ives may have been a member of the First Circuit.

[Ran Felsner]

I was almost certain there wasn't a SIC representative on the First Circuit.  Thanks for helping to confirm that.
It was just the way that Riis' appointment was described that made me think I had missed something.  It is inferred that with his appointment, the First Circuit would be stacked her way, and as far as I could remember, there were only five Precenter Advocates, and three of them were behind her. (I was counting Precenter Sian as pro-Waterly seeing as she is an agent of Rom).  With a Precenter St. Ives, there would have been a tie of 3 votes pro/against Waterly.