Author Topic: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?  (Read 2667 times)

Starfury

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #30 on: 03 August 2024, 07:34:34 »
Also there were going to be additional powers becoming members in addition to the Word of Blake, specifically the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat.  Both of those realms have metaphorical and real axes to grind with any new version of the Star Leauge, and the Canopians helped fight Clan Smoke Jaguar.  That's another set of pressure added to a very shaky conclave.. 

glitterboy2098

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #31 on: 03 August 2024, 07:47:57 »
one thing to keep in mind is that sometimes even when the outcome is known in advance, political votes can be taken purely to put stuff on the record. which i think is what happened. they knew they didn't have the numbers to overturn the outcome. the 2nd star league was ending. but they were voting purely to put on the historical record that the majority of the membership opposed this, and that it was purely the result of those three states withdrawing.

Metallgewitter

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #32 on: 03 August 2024, 17:36:05 »
So similar to the dissolution of the Free Worlds League? Though in that case a show that the members wanted an end to the League
That what does not kill us has made it's last mistake!

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glitterboy2098

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #33 on: 03 August 2024, 18:46:19 »
similar, but with more of a "protest vote" element.

Jeyar123

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #34 on: 03 August 2024, 18:52:34 »
So the only way the no confidence vote to hit over 3/4 with 3 already leaving would have had 3 added (to get to twelve) and hope all of them voted to keep it going? Does that sound right? OA MoC and MH maybe? Were there even any other IS factions of over a dozen worlds or the Equivalent? Maybe the mercenary board and the restaurant chain FFF? :huh:

Cannonshop

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #35 on: 03 August 2024, 22:18:09 »
So the only way the no confidence vote to hit over 3/4 with 3 already leaving would have had 3 added (to get to twelve) and hope all of them voted to keep it going? Does that sound right? OA MoC and MH maybe? Were there even any other IS factions of over a dozen worlds or the Equivalent? Maybe the mercenary board and the restaurant chain FFF? :huh:

It's not "Roberts Rules of Order", and someone already pointed out; Most of the outcomes are plot decided, so anything and everything can and will be bent to make the chosen plot event occur, to include fictional rules of order and/or talleys that shouldn't make sense without large amounts of gymnastics to make them work.

For example previously, the Federated Commonwealth decided to have a massive, bloody civil war in the middle of an invasion that's already swallowed 40% of the Lyran member state's planets, including most of the industrial parts.

Before that, a secessionist sister-of-the-prince walks off with the Lyran state, only to turn around and make herself a princess on New Avalon.
Concurrent to that, the Lyrans, with an enemy  on their SOIL that extensively uses battlearmor, spent vast amounts of industrial capital on a support weapon that's only good for slaughtering unarmored civilians and burning down villages. (They had to retcon that to give it SOME anti-armor capability after this was repeatedly pointed out in these and other forums with mockery and laughter.)

The Lyrans also invested heavily in quads while the invading enemy had omni tech and superior weapons ranges, and the initial heavy gauss rifle, which couldnt' be reliably fired on a bipedal chassis without putting said chassis on its ass. (and the main shot loses damage and velocity at long range because the projectile's got the aerodynamics of a perpendicular cube.)

IOW they concentrated the bad ideas, and the dumb ideas, to drive the plot results they needed for the plot.

Okay, now extend to the Star League.  Sun Tzu in five years outmaneuvered everybody. full stop.  How does he cap this? by painting the Capcon a shade of "Easy Target", then counting on everyone else to do exactly the wrong thing for their own interests (but the exact right thing-besides Word of Blake, for his.)

and they did it.

I could see the walkaways happening in the aftermath of a vote refusing SLDF relief in the war torn former fedcom, or if Yvonne couldn't get financial aid for recovery, but Peter going along with it is nothing but pure plot-driven stupid juice.  His situation he'd NEED the foreign aid and foreign Trade to rebuild given that the Lyran state has been everybody's favorite battlefield since 3049.

Including his family members, who pitted their key units against their key units in a fratricidal festival of idiocracy, mismanagement, absent landlordism, and raw stinking hubristic stupidity (From 3062 to 3067, no less.  He had to kill his great aunt to stop it.)

but without the overriding plot drive, the actions don't make sense the same way using 600 steps to complete a movement that only needs 6 doesn't make sense.

Clearly someone should've been checking the royal apartments for leaded glass windows and flaking lead paint back in the 3030s, when the children were small.

when forty percent of your nation is occupied and all you've got is a lousy cease-fire the other side's already broken twice? you don't abandon your alliances, you beg them for help.

this common sense was not followed, because if it HAD been, the Republic of the Sphere could never be born, and nobody would be owing Devlin Stone a ****** thing.

The PLOT required the outcome of the vote being dissolution.

In the middle of an invasion that was only on 'pause'.

"If you have to ask permission, then it's no longer a Right, it has been turned into a Privilege-something that can be and will be taken from you when convenient."

The Wobbly Guy

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #36 on: 03 August 2024, 22:49:28 »
What would have been a more plausible way to end the 2nd Star League then?

FS pulling out, I can see that. CC, certainly, STL already planned it long ago.

But c'mon, there's such a thing as delaying payments and granting certain faction privileges to keep them in the tent.

Perhaps some deal STL struck with the MoC and TC to get them to back his play? Would that have been enough?

Alan Grant

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #37 on: 04 August 2024, 05:31:38 »
I can think of a few reasons to want the exit the Star League (and bring it down) that perfectly jive with the canon events without having to rewrite In-Universe years of canon storyline. Cannonshop's list of greviences go way back. I'm going to focus on just that final chapter of the no-confidence vote and leave the events leading up to it as canon. I prefer to look at how to explain the downfall of the Second Star League while leaving as much of canon intact as possible. In my head rewriting the universe in such a way as to require fewer retcons is better. I'm not sure what I'm offering requires any. I think most-to-all of what I'm offering can be used within the existing universe if the writers decided to expand on this topic and offer a deeper look as to what was happening behind-the-scenes politically in the lead-up to the fall of the Star League.

1. The cost to be a member is too high.

If you read FM: ComStar, which had a SLDF section. The new SLDF was going to have it all. Divisions, Corps, Armies and Army Groups are planned. There were plans on paper to create something militarily on the scale of the First Star League. This was not going to be cheap and the members were going to have to pay the bill.

Within the BattleMech section of that it notes that only the Combine and FWL have been happily supplying the SLDF with new BattleMechs. With the internal problems of the other realms causing significant problems.

The new SLDF was going to need more than just BattleMechs. It was going to need multiple academies and training centers. It was going to need bases/infrastructure everywhere within the Great Houses. Standing up entire SLDF army size units would have required a massive investment in everything a military needs.

FM: Updates also points out by this point that the Lyran and Davion realms already had racked up significant debt to the FWL in order to build/rebuild/upgrade their militaries following the Clan Invasion. As of the time of the last Star League conference, they were in for another major cycle of military rebuilding at significant cost.

So being a SL member means putting forward a lot of money. Maybe they came to see it as too much. But you can't just outright say "we can't pay" without risking some sort of economic crisis within your own nation. So this can be a reason, but you'd be reluctant to say the quiet parts out loud.


2. Funding someone else's intelligence

FM: ComStar's SLDF section notes that the new Star League would get its own intelligence agency. I can see every nation's intelligence agency giving that the stink eye. Who they gonna spy on? Are we really going to fund a new intelligence agency that is likely to be spying on us? I can see advisors in each realm cautioning against supporting this.


3. After what Sun Tzu did with SLDF badged units. Few nations trust SLDF units being "stationed" within their realms.

First Lord Sun-Tzu Liao exploited the SLDF for his own political gain. Deploying them to a realm he intended to attack as peacekeepers. This must have been an experience that rattled the other member nations a little bit. Everything about how the new Star League was set up was seemingly designed to make sure no one could exploit it too much. But already it was being exploited for 1 nation's gain over another. If I was one of the other Great Houses, I might feel like my optimism about the Star League had been torn away and replaced with something akin to cynicism and a new-found healthy skepticism. If I've suddenly became wary of allowing SLDF forces within my realm.. why am I supporting and paying for a SLDF? Do I even want a massive SLDF to exist at all if it's going to perhaps represent a threat that may be turned against my own realm? Keep in mind what I said in point 1. The SLDF may technically be fairly small at the moment, but it has plans to grow and expand and become a huge military. Do I want to see that become reality at this point? As a member it might be turned against me. As a non-member it might be turned against me.

Yes as of 3060-something, you might have faith that the Eridan Light Horse and the 1st Royal Regiment wouldn't allow themselves to be exploited in that way. But will that faith persist when the SLDF has entire Divisions, Corps and Armies some generations down the road?

So there's 3 reasons that come to mind to want to bring down the Second Star League. Some of those even hint at why you wouldn't want to just not be a member yourself, but why also you'd want to burn it down as you are exiting the building.

If the writers ever wanted to go back to that chapter in history, and explore deeper what was happening behind the scenes with the various leaders in the lead-up to that vote. I could see them using the above as some of the cornerstones of that story. No retcon required, these could be the private meetings between nation leaders and their key advisors, and the private meetings between different nation leaders, that reveals more of the factors at play here, that BT fans weren't told about at the time that the early Jihad content was being published.
« Last Edit: 04 August 2024, 06:41:36 by Alan Grant »

Metallgewitter

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Re: The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?
« Reply #38 on: 04 August 2024, 07:27:04 »
Didn't the 2nd SL already have a sort of intelligence service? They hired the Killer Bees to train their own special forces called Fury.. There is one mention that the new SL send those teams on a mission called Starfall to prevent terrorists from using nerve gas on Falcon worldswithout the Falcons noticing

In terms of financing Alan is right. For the Kobold battle armore there was the mention that the Star League had to withdraw their support and Comstar picked up the slack. The same was a note about building a new Warship class as escort for their units after the Eridani Light Horse ran into a Feng Yuan cruiser during the St Ives war.

Of course one coulds argue that with the addition of the word of Blake, comstar and the Taurians there should be at least some compensation in terms of financing. Of course the main questiuon would be, if a League that consists for the Free Worlds, Combine, Rasalhague, Concordat, Comstar and Word of Blakle even be able to exort any authority on the rest of the IS? The Commonwealth perhaps as that nation was hit harder in terms of military losses then the Suns
That what does not kill us has made it's last mistake!

We are eternal! We are etheral! We will fight you until the skies fall and the heavens burn!

Remember: retreat hell!

 

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