New Circe...
"...and now you see why we've been keeping this a secret." Protector Vaun said.
"I always thought Comstar was a little scummy." Liz allowed, "Monopolies don't lead to good ethics, and there's a strong motivator for them to suppress technology, but genocides?"
"believe it." Seether said, gesturing at the records from the Nueva Pueblo's databases. "We fought a war that lasted damned near as long as the virus did, and it was because while we were trying to save civilization, they were busily trying to tear it down to the bedrock and beyond."
"We approached Kowloon first, because Earth was...is...in the hands of some fanatical lunatics." Protector Vaun said, "everything we've got on the other you, she was sensibly cautious in her dealings with the Communications Ministry."
"In that timeline, Victor and Katherine went to civil war and he never became first lord." Liz observed, "In that timeline, only the Novacats crossed teh aisle until it was almost too late. We have five of the original twenty of Nicky's Clans now, six if you count the Jaguar survivors who surrendered to the SLDF and DCMS during the last two years. We've signed up the Magistracy and the Taurians and I'm guessing Shraplen stepping down was your doing, to make room for the Calderon heir?"
"We...may have influenced things." Vaun said carefully.
"Don't be shy, Protector, even I have a secret service, and I'm not even a head of state." Liz countered, "Coast Guard's OCB and my own corporate espionage people. I would respect you less if you didn't have a working, functional intelligence agency with an Operations Department."
"Why less?"
"Because that would mean you only survived through luck...Your people must be good, since I've never seen or heard of them. good means you've got something to trade on if you need it. Seether, do you have a list of war criminals from the Jihad?"
"I do...we even caught one before he became a war criminal." Seether confirmed.
"Good. Think more on 'roles' than personalities. I'll be wanting your watch-list for Kelli Fitz's people. we can't proactively go around wasting folk, but we can be ready if they jump like they did in your world."
"In our world, Katherine Steiner-Davion split the realm, assassinated her mother and triggered a civil war."
"In this world Melissa retired and Katherine is a warship ace admiral for the SLDF." Liz said, "A role she's handling much more adroitly than the attempt at big-table politics-like maybe, because it suits her ego and fills her need for attention a mite better."
"You consider her a glory hound?"
"I'm not the only one." Liz said, "I'm just the bitch who says it in public while pushing for another award for her. I swear the woman has an ego almost as large as First Fleet...but it sates her bloodlust enough that she'd rather be chasing toasters across the lower z-axis than trying to get herself installed in a political office. In your timeline, she arranged the assassination of Omi Kurita, in THIS timeline, she arranged the bridal shower and got her soon-to-be-sister-in-law blotto on the streets of Avalon City the night before the ceremony so Omi was hungover and miserable when she said 'I Do'."
"ick, pics or it didn't happen!"
Liz grinned, "Pics it is." she reached into her suit-jacket and produced a display reader, "I hated the trip there, and back, but when your boss wants a bridesmaid..."
"You were a Kathrinist in my timeline, then you hated them both."
"In THAT timeline, they split the ****** nation in the middle of an invasion." Liz observed, "I think any me would hate that-civil wars are anything but civil, and are almost always among the worst of wars."
"The Word of Blake sits on the Star League council now, along with Comstar." Vaun pointed out, dragging the subject back.
"That just means they're an enemy we're close to, and can keep tabs on." Liz reminded her, "Just like the Clans."
"The Clans are still the enemy?" Vaun asked.
"Yes." Liz said, "Right now, they're on our side, but that's against an existential threat. Some of them might stay friends after, but i don't fool myself-the homeworld Clans will turn on us, the others might....but the homeworlders? they will."
"Interesting...why? what would flip them?"
"Economics." Liz said, "Their system worked fine for them as long as they didn't have to compete with functioning economies, their tech was in advance of ours only due to information loss and comstar. Their system is fundamentally unworkable and was plunging for collapse when they made the decision to invade. If they'd launched Revival in 3059 instead of 3049, they would have collapsed by 3060-the easy resources near or at the surface are used up, their 'no waste' system generates nothing but waste, they don't have sustainable power grids, agriculture, or a deep and flexible manufacturing capacity...like the one i see you've got and i want to expand. In twenty years, the Clan Homeworlds will have to change how they do business, or starve."
"You don't think they're going to change."
"To change, they'd have to do what your Khan Sarah McEvedy did-and that means the end of their 'culture'." Elizabeth explained, "They won't do that, they can't, so they're going to turn on us, because the alternative is admitting Nicholas Kerensky didn't, after all, have the answers. The Bears, Falcons, Wolves, Novacats, and your lot already got so far ahead of that, that there's a good chance we'll keep those four. The Diamond Sharks maybe might, the Snow Ravens have already broached relocation and assimilation into the Outworlds Alliance, so they might. the rest?"
"Won't." Seether said, "Not even the Goliath Scorpions?"
"The Scorps are small, we'll get the ones smart enough to run." Liz allowed, "maybe a few breakaways from the others, but as an entity? uh-uh. Nope. first thing that will happen, is they'll go on an orgy of fratricide to try and snag as many of the easy resources as possible, they'll use absorption and reav bloodlines to maintain a population balance of some sort and prevent opposition. After that, they'll turn to invading and raiding like locusts. I give it between five and thirty years on the outside, and we'll be fighting new Clan invaders, only these won't be coming to 'save the star league' from 'the traitor lords', they'll be coming because NOT coming means starvation-and that's starvation in the land of milk and honey."
"Because of Economics." Vaun observed.
"Yep." Liz said, "It's like the old Soviet Union of the 20th century-they had bumper crops of wheat, and starvation rations in the cities while the crops rotted on the railheads. the Party Elite weren't starving, their people were. The commentary I read quoted a worker as saying 'They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work', only the Clans? can't liberalize enough to remove that situation. It's the central problem of Caste-based command economies-there's no motivation beyond a quota, and no reason to excel besides a gun to your head."
Vaun understood her meaning, "Guns only work so well for that."
"Exactly." Liz nodded, "Their youth-focused culture forgets that in a man's most productive years, are the years he looks to the future, and their system denies that future, if you know you're going to be left to starve you end up saving your energy, it's evolutionary. When you treat people like property, you have a slave state. It's why the Cappies are so outright bad at...everything, really, except dying well. With their industrial and economic base, they should've been able to eat the Federated Suns...but it's the FedSuns who keep winning the conflicts."
"How do you plan to put it off then?"
"Food shipments." Liz said, "enough to buy time once their collapse is visible. One out of every five hulls out of Alarion and Boojum is a bulk hauler with multiple collars, deep holds, coated in food-grade ceramics and polymers, with refrigeration built in. We will sell them food for as long as we can afford to do so, in order to keep them fed enough that they don't self-destruct until either we're ready, or they've gotten some ****** sense." she looked at her shoes, "I don't expect them to get some ****** sense. but I'm a human being, and I can't justify letting children starve to death simply because their leadership are a bunch of ritual-obsessed fools."
"The old you would've." Seether said.
"The old me had a lot less to work with." Elizabeth told her, "you can only afford to be generous if you can afford it."