The fall of the Star League: What were they trying to accomplish?

[Liam's Ghost]

So according to a news article from the period in Dawn of the Jihad, the Second Star League abruptly dissolved thus:

As the conference started, the Capellan Confederation sent a note announcing their withdrawal, while the Lyrans and Suns declared their withdrawal in person.

The other house lords objected to the Capellan, Lyran, and Suns decision to leave and called for a vote of no confidence in the Star League. The Taurians and Word of Blake were admitted to vote in this, and the result was 6-3 in favor of retaining the League, which failed to achieve the necessary 3/4ths majority to keep the League going.

(Sarna says the vote of no confidence was actually called by First Lord Mansdottir, who hoped the council lords would vote to retain the League, but I can't find any reference for this. Dawn of the Jihad suggests that all the other house lords demanded the no confidence vote)

From these data points we can assume that the three houses that had just announced their withdrawal were permitted a say in the no confidence vote (presumably their membership actually ended with the end of the council), and all three of those states voted to dissolve the Star League, but the remaining states uniformly voted for the Star League to remain.

Which raises my question. If they wanted the Star League to remain WHY DID THE OTHER HOUSE LORDS CALL FOR A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

It's simple mathematics. They apparently needed a three fourths majority to keep the league going. There were nine votes. They knew the three states that were on the way out were going to vote against it. They therefore knew they could only ever get six votes in favor of sustaining it. The only way the vote of no confidence could fail and the league could be sustained would be if one of the states that had just decided to leave the Star League suddenly went "Oh gee, I know I just said we're leaving the Star League, but you guys should totally keep it going."

So why did everybody who wanted to keep the League decide to put it up on the chopping block in the first place? What am I missing?

[Cannonshop]

So according to a news article from the period in Dawn of the Jihad, the Second Star League abruptly dissolved thus:

As the conference started, the Capellan Confederation sent a note announcing their withdrawal, while the Lyrans and Suns declared their withdrawal in person.

The other house lords objected to the Capellan, Lyran, and Suns decision to leave and called for a vote of no confidence in the Star League. The Taurians and Word of Blake were admitted to vote in this, and the result was 6-3 in favor of retaining the League, which failed to achieve the necessary 3/4ths majority to keep the League going.

(Sarna says the vote of no confidence was actually called by First Lord Mansdottir, who hoped the council lords would vote to retain the League, but I can't find any reference for this. Dawn of the Jihad suggests that all the other house lords demanded the no confidence vote)

From these data points we can assume that the three houses that had just announced their withdrawal were permitted a say in the no confidence vote (presumably their membership actually ended with the end of the council), and all three of those states voted to dissolve the Star League, but the remaining states uniformly voted for the Star League to remain.

Which raises my question. If they wanted the Star League to remain WHY DID THE OTHER HOUSE LORDS CALL FOR A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

It's simple mathematics. They apparently needed a three fourths majority to keep the league going. There were nine votes. They knew the three states that were on the way out were going to vote against it. They therefore knew they could only ever get six votes in favor of sustaining it. The only way the vote of no confidence could fail and the league could be sustained would be if one of the states that had just decided to leave the Star League suddenly went "Oh gee, I know I just said we're leaving the Star League, but you guys should totally keep it going."

So why did everybody who wanted to keep the League decide to put it up on the chopping block in the first place? What am I missing?

Much of it is "Power of Plot"-but not all.

You've got to understand, an alliance of victors tends to fall apart anyway, and everyone who said they wanted a Star League, left out one important aspect: They wanted the original, with themselves in charge.

2nd Star League was constructed in a way that that literally couldn't happen.

That's the first part, the second, was how easily Sun Tzu corrupted it during his tenure, and how ineffectual the alliance was in preventing the very thing it was supposed to prevent.  A historical example you might consider, is the League of Nations, which utterly failed to keep the peace-a peace it was explicitly created to keep.

2nd Star League, after Bulldog and Serpent, was incapable of doing...well...anything.

The unity of purpose wasn't there and the external threat was....well, gone.

The boogeyman of the Clan invasion was mitigated in the minds of not only the public, but the governments involved as well.  It didn't matter than 40% of the Lyran state was still occupied, because the FWL, CapCon, Etc. weren't under threat and they knew it, and if there's anything to be doped out of the FedCom civil war, it's that the Lyrans and Feddies would rather throw their key units up against their own key units in a family spat, rather than fight off a foreign invader with a dogma of social conversion.

(this has historical precedent too; Chinese fought Chinese much harder in WWII than either major faction of Chinese fought the Japanese invaders.)

[beachhead1985]

So according to a news article from the period in Dawn of the Jihad, the Second Star League abruptly dissolved thus:

As the conference started, the Capellan Confederation sent a note announcing their withdrawal, while the Lyrans and Suns declared their withdrawal in person.

The other house lords objected to the Capellan, Lyran, and Suns decision to leave and called for a vote of no confidence in the Star League. The Taurians and Word of Blake were admitted to vote in this, and the result was 6-3 in favor of retaining the League, which failed to achieve the necessary 3/4ths majority to keep the League going.

(Sarna says the vote of no confidence was actually called by First Lord Mansdottir, who hoped the council lords would vote to retain the League, but I can't find any reference for this. Dawn of the Jihad suggests that all the other house lords demanded the no confidence vote)

From these data points we can assume that the three houses that had just announced their withdrawal were permitted a say in the no confidence vote (presumably their membership actually ended with the end of the council), and all three of those states voted to dissolve the Star League, but the remaining states uniformly voted for the Star League to remain.

Which raises my question. If they wanted the Star League to remain WHY DID THE OTHER HOUSE LORDS CALL FOR A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

It's simple mathematics. They apparently needed a three fourths majority to keep the league going. There were nine votes. They knew the three states that were on the way out were going to vote against it. They therefore knew they could only ever get six votes in favor of sustaining it. The only way the vote of no confidence could fail and the league could be sustained would be if one of the states that had just decided to leave the Star League suddenly went "Oh gee, I know I just said we're leaving the Star League, but you guys should totally keep it going."

So why did everybody who wanted to keep the League decide to put it up on the chopping block in the first place? What am I missing?

I think boring old procedure had a lot to do with calling the vote. It was simply what the rules of order and the constitution required.

But Cannonshop is right; a lot of the issue was that they built in effect a very different organization from the one they set out to emulate. The argument can be carrier further that the missing element of the Terran Hegemony was necessary to make it work.

I recall that *expense* has been touted as a major reason as well, and I've never been 100% on where that actually fell, since most costs outside the SLDF that I can spot were costs that would need to be paid anyways by the membership (rebuilding) and these would presumably be offset by the economic benefits of the alliance as well.

The demands of the all-powerful PLOT were the main driver of course. The remaining 6 of 3 could certainly have formed their own club or simply opted to let the other three leave. It was an odd moment to decide to remain true to the spirit of the original League with an all-or-nothing stand on membership.

[EPG]

There’s another reason to do a vote of no confidence and formal dissolution and that’s legal precedent.  One of the reasons the succession wars were as bad as they were was the collapse of the enforcement mechanism of the star league (its military) without a clear mechanism that ended it.  Formally dissolving the 2nd star league means nobody gets to try and claim legitimacy to start a war in its name.  This to me seemed like the obvious reason why

[Alan Grant]

According to Jihad Hot Spots 3070 a few things happened:

- Liao decided he was done with the League and will quit it. The consensus opinion seemed to be no could no longer manipulate it for his own uses. He has a courier deliver a scathing message to the Star League conference.
- The Steiner-Davion children surprise everyone by basically agreeing with Liao. The FedCom Civil War has done tremendous damage and they think they are better off on their own to rebuild rather than call on the League for economic assistance. So Yvonne and Peter are telling everyone they are done with the League.
-The League inducts the Taurians and the WoB in a desperate bid to shore up the League in the face of an incoming no confidence vote.
-The vote happens, a two-thirds vote is required to keep the Star League going and not to disband. They don't have the votes. (note here, I have to wonder if the percentage is wrong from this book)

So it wasn't just a vote of no confidence. The Capellans, Federated Suns and Lyran Alliance had just announced that they were out. They were done with the Star League. They are no longer going to be members.

Even if the vote had somehow passed to hold the Star League together, how do you do that when 3 of the major Great Houses are out? The answer is not easily, and instead of a Star League this has begun to take the shape of a weird power block alliance or coalition that falls far short of being a Star League.     

It says First Lord Månsdottir made an effort to try to hold things together politically, but it didn't work.

[BrianDavion]

The Steiner-Davion children surprise everyone by basically agreeing with Liao. The FedCom Civil War has done tremendous damage and they think they are better off on their own to rebuild rather than call on the League for economic assistance. So Yvonne and Peter are telling everyone they are done with the League.

This part was very much the part that never made much sense to me TBH. It would have made more sense if they had joint pulled out if the 2nd Star league simple refused to provide assistance in rebuilding, and in fact at the same time the 2nd SL attempted to increase membership fees to pay for an expansion of the SLDF. (possiably in response to the jade falcon incursion during the FCCW)

[Cannonshop]

This part was very much the part that never made much sense to me TBH. It would have made more sense if they had joint pulled out if the 2nd Star league simple refused to provide assistance in rebuilding, and in fact at the same time the 2nd SL attempted to increase membership fees to pay for an expansion of the SLDF. (possiably in response to the jade falcon incursion during the FCCW)

People do irrational things.  The entire FCCW was an example of that, it's in keeping that they'd still be irrational after.

[beachhead1985]

People do irrational things. 

*THIS*

Applicable to oh, so many situations I wish it were not.

[Marveryn]

i think it should be re writing with the liao pulling out and then the vote happen with the steiners and davion surprising the rest by also voting to dissolve. So instead of them announcing it prior to the vote they would do it as part of the voting process

[Liam's Ghost]

The Blake Documents makes it clear that the Capellans leaving wasn't a surprise.

I kinda want to believe that the Steiner-Davion siblings' intentions weren't a complete surprise either. Major diplomatic decisions are rarely a surprise to everybody involved. It would make sense in my head if the Lyrans and Davions had already hinted in diplomatic channels what they would need to stay in (maybe financial assistance to recover from the civil war and relief from having to provide financial and military support to the league while they got back on their feet), and made the decision to withdraw when those diplomatic channels indicated they wouldn't get what they wanted.

I honestly doubt anybody though the League was actually working, and its more ardent supporters were more of the attitude of "we can fix it". People like Thomas Marik or Christian Mansdottir were probably telling Peter and Yvonne that "You just have to have faith that eventually we can make this work."

[Alan Grant]

The anti-Clan operations aside, the 2nd Star League's history was already a checkered one.

Did it succeed (or even try?) to contain the damage of the FedCom Civil War? No, not really. I'm not suggesting it was going to stop the war. But even pulling off securing safe zones or safe worlds or escorted shipments of relief supplies to devastated worlds via peacekeepers would have been nice of the Star League to show that it was trying.

Did a First Lord exploit it and badged SLDF troops to expand his own realm? Yes, Sun-Tzu used SLDF peacekeepers in the St. Ives Compact to stir up trouble and to help open the door for the Capellans to regain that realm. Not long after that, the SLDF tried to counter move that move with the Eridani Light Horse showing up in the Compact to try to give Liao pause. Which in a way weirdly displayed the kind of bipolar political games that were happening in the Second Star League. How its priorities could change from one moment to the next with the very next First Lord working to undo the work of the last one.

FM: Updates, a book that just precedes the no confidence vote in the timeline, is full of hints that the Star League is struggling. In the SLDF section Kurita is writing to Redburn and talking about wanting to do better, to make it look like the Star League is more than just a cheap political maneuver. One of the opening pages of that book in general talks about how the Star League is on "shaky legs."

I think it's very important to note that you don't see anything change to solve the problem of how to prevent another "Liao exploits being First Lord to take the St. Ives Compact" situation. It happened, Liao got away with it. Yes, people then became wise to the risks of a First Lord exploiting that power. But I'm not aware of any mechanism that was then built into how the Star League functioned that would prevent another First Lord from essentially repeating the exact same trick. Fear of exactly that was why people moved to blunt Katherine becoming First Lord.

Essentially being voted in as First Lord was becoming an opportunistic way to gain some temporary power. And you just really hoped no maniac delusional leaders got voted in. Yet the Second Star League charter and how it was framed basically guaranteed every member's leader was going to be in the hot seat sooner or later. So inducting the WoB and the Taurians means that one day they too will be First Lord.

There were also a lot of political games surrounding even that voting. Such as the blocking of Katherine to that role. Mansdottir seems like he was a genuinely good candidate for the job. But everyone watching that election had to realize this is all extremely political, and not in a great way. They were trying desperately to keep certain people OUT of that job... when the rules said it was just a matter of time before they did serve (any nation's leader couldn't serve a second term until they had all served a first term as First Lord).

Among the Clans, things kinda went to pieces went Garrett Sainze was elected ilKhan. He was a ridiculous choice and everyone knew it (but him). After he was taken down with a vote of no confidence, things began to spiral out of control and create the Wars of Reaving era. Electing Mansdottir to First Lord was in some ways the same thing. Best of intentions from his perspective sure, but also, it pretends that every member nation of the Star League was on a generally even playing field, and we just know they are not. I do think in some ways it was difficult for some of the Great Houses to take orders from Mansdottir and his tiny Rasalhague Republic. Just as it was difficult for the Clans to take orders from the comparatively tiny and inconsequential Kindraa Sainze of the Fire Mandrills.

I agree with the opinion that a few supporters were like "you have to have faith that eventually we can make this work." But the current reality was that it wasn't working very well. That a lot of the internal political of the Second Star League had already shifted from a sense of optimistic "we can do great things here" to more of an obstructionist "we need play political games to make sure no one exploits this power too much."

A feeling of optimism about the Second Star League was giving way to cynical thoughts and feelings about it.

[Metallgewitter]

There is also another aspect: the Blakists were actaully already offering Houses Steiner and Davion assistance. The forces that attacked their capitals were first meant as a token of gratitude for voting Blake's word as a provisional member (for example the Lyrans knew that the Invincible was part of the Blakists entourage over Tharkad). Also worth of note: the Word withdrew all it's help from the Confederation the moment Sun-Tzu said "I am out". So at least one part of the League was trying to do it's part to help. The whole dissoultion was more a plot device to get the Jihad rolling then something based on logic. Though I could forsee the collapse of the League a few years later anyway once they realize how murderous the Blakist's idea of honoring the Leage was

[Alan Grant]

I don't think any of those powers knew that "help" was coming from the Blakists prior to the no-confidence vote. Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, part of that was the Invincible showing up over Tharkad. And that came as a shock and a surprise AFTER the Second Star League dissolved. It showed up and started shooting.

So I don't think these gifts had any bearing on the votes and voting because no one knew about them until the gifts had already been reprogrammed to be weapons intended to punish the Great Houses. Unless I'm wrong about the sequence of events.

Regardless of the specifics of that. We know some of the powers and individuals involved were trying to keep it together. It wasn't 100% everyone saying they were out. It was a split vote and we know the Blakists voted for keeping the SL together. So regardless of the blakist "gifts" we know which direction they tilted. The "keep the League together" bloc just didn't have enough votes to succeed.

[Shin_Fenris]

I don't think any of those powers knew that "help" was coming from the Blakists prior to the no-confidence vote. Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, part of that was the Invincible showing up over Tharkad. And that came as a shock and a surprise AFTER the Second Star League dissolved. It showed up and started shooting.

A sidebar in either the second or third Jihad book clarified that the flight plan for the Invincible had been known in advance, but that it left its "traffic lane" (causing the "air traffic controllers" to spazz) before firing down on Tharkad. So it wasn't so much a shock that the warship was there as it was mass panic caused by its actions. Much in the same way that the "nuclear assault" on Tharkad was later clarified to be a reactor in the cap city going crit.

Sorry I can't cite the exact page or book source at the moment, at work, but I'm 100% sure it's a real thing.

[The Wobbly Guy]

The Wobblies were hardly a coherent bloc... I daresay even their leaders had no idea what they were going to do next!

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

FM: Updates, a book that just precedes the no confidence vote in the timeline, is full of hints that the Star League is struggling. In the SLDF section Kurita is writing to Redburn and talking about wanting to do better, to make it look like the Star League is more than just a cheap political maneuver. One of the opening pages of that book in general talks about how the Star League is on "shaky legs."

I think one of the more revealing remarks in hindsight comes from the intro to the Lyran section. In his foreward to Peter, Caesar says that he has "grave doubts" about the LC participating in negotiations at the Whitting Conference. He spent five years as a General on the SLDF High Command and there's rumors that he's planning on going back to the post that are credible enough that Handbook: House Steiner remarks on them, if anyone is going to favor the Star League it's gonna be him, and even he's like "this probably isn't worth it for us."

Like you said, Liao abused the position of First Lord and got away with it. But Theodore did the same, so the Star League wasn't even a net neutral for the LC, they're worse off for having been in it, since they're down one Lyons Thumb. For all that they claimed to be recreating the Star League, nobody involved seemed to remember that the original League was built on one thing: bribery. The people who wanted to stay in the League were trying political stunts when they should have been offering fat stacks of cash.

[Metallgewitter]

I think it was also to prevent other state leaders to witness the damage the recently ended civil war brought to Tharkad. After all just a few months prior Tharkad was abig battleground.

I also remember that the new SLDF were dissapointed that they didn't participated against the Clan incursions into the Combine and later into the Alliance. What makes me wonder is though: Why didn't the Lyrans request help? Unlike the Combine they didn't provoke the Falcons into attacking so there might have been a fair base for a help request. Was there the fear of helping Victor's forces? After all the Falcons also tied up several regiments of Victor's forces

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Most likely.  Kathrine had already shown herself willing to let Lyran worlds fall to Clan forces if she thought she could use it to hurt Victor somehow.  Plus she probably also thought that her secret alliance with Vlad would have caused the Wolves to act.

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

I think it was also to prevent other state leaders to witness the damage the recently ended civil war brought to Tharkad. After all just a few months prior Tharkad was abig battleground.

I also remember that the new SLDF were dissapointed that they didn't participated against the Clan incursions into the Combine and later into the Alliance. What makes me wonder is though: Why didn't the Lyrans request help? Unlike the Combine they didn't provoke the Falcons into attacking so there might have been a fair base for a help request. Was there the fear of helping Victor's forces? After all the Falcons also tied up several regiments of Victor's forces

He does say that he doesn't like them being hosted on Tharkad, but then he goes beyond that to say that he has doubts about participating at all.

[Alan Grant]

FM: Updates also notes that Victor basically had to tell Morgan's Lions (The First Royal BattleMech Regiment) to stay true to their oaths and stay out of the FedCom Civil War. In spite of this, a few joined Victor in the FedCom Civil War.

FM: Updates notes that Victor was determined to uphold the SLDF's neutrality in the conflict.

Victor had strong ties to the SLDF. Katherine didn't want to call for aid from any forces that weren't truly loyal to her. They'd already had plenty of problems from "turncoat" units in their own military. Too many of them had been fans of what Victor had accomplished fighting the Clans. How many soldiers from other realms would turn up as part of SLDF aid to fight the Jade Falcons... only to turn around and declare support for Victor's cause and join the FedCom Civil War now that they were well-established within Lyran borders?

This was a very real and distinct possibility with precedents. We saw units from all other, like Com Guard divisions, take sides. We saw soldiers from outside the Lyran and Davion realms run to join the fight, to join Victor in particular.

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

Apparently Theodore can find loopholes when it helps them annex the Lyons Thumb but not when the Jade Falcons attack. You couldn't just, I don't know, attack from Rasalhague space or something.

[Metallgewitter]

Victor asking for the SLDF to sdtay neutral at the start of the Civil War is one thing. He also stepped down from being Precentor Martial to keep Comstar's image as neutral as possible (and only the 244th joined him openly the rest fought because they were attacked by Loyalists or were seconded to Loyalists with the blessing of the acting Precentor Martial)

And the SLDF helping the Alliance if the Alliance requests help should have been within Victor's last order: fight an outside enemy then withdraw. Though as others stated it would also have helped Victor's forces (for example the Falcons destroyed the remnants from the Argyle Lancers as well as knocking out the 8th Deneb Light Cavalry). Plus it tied at least 4 regiments of Allied forces up (the 2nd Crucis plus the 3 regiment strong Archer's Avengers).

[Alan Grant]

Edit: I've rewritten this post a few times, sorry. will try to make this the last.

Your post implies that the SLDF (Not the Star League Council, the military, and the Commanding General) gets to decide whether or not to intervene. I don't think the SLDF Commanding General has that authority. That authority lies with the Second Star League Council. It's first and foremost a political decision. In turn, the SL Council is looking for that government (LA) to request that assistance, and as far as we can tell, they did not.

So Victor leaving behind orders as the outgoing SLDF Commanding General.... A. Not relevant because past CO's don't really get to do that, the new CO is the new CO and statements of "but the last CO said" get crushed immediately. That's just not how militaries operate. And B. Ultimately it is up to the political authority to decide, not the SLDF.

Victor was trying to get the SLDF to obey their oaths to the SLDF. He was trying to prevent members of the SLDF from basically going AWOL and joining his cause. Because some did exactly that. That had less to do with SLDF official policy as it was a more personal plea not to go AWOL.

It's pretty clear from FM: Updates that many SLDF soldiers wanted to get involved to fight the Clans, they felt frustrated that they didn't. But the political authority (The Star League Council) never gave those orders to deploy.

Victor's wishes were past-tense at that point, and no longer really relevant in the day-to-day operations of the Star League or the SLDF. Except for the fact that it probably did prevent a mass exodus of AWOL SLDF members running off to join his cause. Which would have been detrimental, not just to the SLDF's actual fighting strength. But to its reputation.

[Metallgewitter]

Your post implies that the SLDF gets to decide whether or not to intervene. I don't think the SLDF Commanding General has that authority. That authority lies with the Second Star League Council. It's first and foremost a political decision. In turn, the SL Council is looking for that government (LA) to request that assistance, and as far as we can tell, they did not.

Well the Commanding General had an option that was used by Victor during the St Ives war: In Prince of Havoc after he was appointed Commanding General he stated he can't send in troops without official sanction by the Council BUT he can send units on "extended maneuvers" and if they are under attack they of course have the right to defend themselves. So in theory Hohiro could have asked for some units to be put on maneuver on the Alliance border if Katherine had requested it. Of course if the Capellans, Combine, League or Rasalhague had agreed is on another note

[Alan Grant]

Those extended maneuvers were a debacle. Not a success story. It was a horrible experience for the Eridani Light Horse, who took casualties and were ultimately forced to withdraw. It's very debatable whether it was worth it.

Furthermore, having just played that card once to circumvent the political leadership. I doubt that card was on the table still.

As in the Star League Council's reaction was probably: "Ok we see what you did there, don't pull that crap again." <dagger stares at the SLDF>

Obviously this is purely my opinion. But if I was on the Star League council, and of the mindset that the SLDF was pulling funny tricks to try to circumvent my authority. I'd feel obliged to crack down on that. To take some options off the table so my military leaders can't effectively exploit the letter of the law rather than the intent to engage in illegal and rogue military operations.

EDIT: If you are fishing for reasons why/how the SLDF could have theoretically gotten involved. I'm sure there's some "letter of the law" rationales for how it could have happened. Maneuvers, disaster relief. A request from Morgan Kell as the political leader of Arc-Royal for assistance perhaps. Some angle the writers could have exploited. Sure. But they didn't, and we know why they didn't, Katherine didn't ask. Furthermore the writers had other intentions. They wanted other units and personalities to be a key part of the story of the Jade Falcon incursion. They wanted some members of each side of the Civil War to come together to stop the Falcons. Rather than a purely outside party. They framed at least one novel around it as I recall. They wanted Adam Steiner, Archer Christifori and others to be central to that story. Not Redburn or Khan West. It was a writing and story decision ultimately.

Beyond that I'm not inclined to debate this any further. I think this line of discussion has reached its end point. At least in my eyes. And it wasn't really what the original poster was asking.

The original poster is after reasons why so many members of the Star League Council wanted to dissolve the Star League. Rather than just step away from it themselves but let the SL continue to exist without them.

[Liam's Ghost]

Actually my original question was why did the factions who wanted to preserve the Star League call for a vote that could only end in the Star League disbanding.

Whether the Star League was destined to fall or whether the great houses had reason to still believe it could amount to something even with three of its member states bowing out is technically separate to that.

There was nothing in the text to suggest that the vote of no-confidence was required, and the implication I got was that the ones who called it hoped the vote would sustain the Star League.

[BrianDavion]

My GUESS is their hope was to use the vote to shock people into "ohh shit yeah we want it" I dunno. it was definatly a dumb move. it's also possiable STL, or the steiner-davions called for such a vote as they exited wanting to, hopefully break up what could become a hostile power block, or that the consisution called for such a vote if a memebr choose to exit

[Liam's Ghost]

Honestly the whole thing would probably have been more clear if they'd had novels to write about this stuff at the time.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The lack of novel coverage of that era certainly made things unclear.

[BrianDavion]

The lack of novel coverage of that era certainly made things unclear.

and it didn't help that with the Jihad sorucebooks rather then really try to write a clear account, they leaned into the uncertianty. it was an experiment and I give em props for trying, personally I found it mildly frustrating as we'd already gotten vague info about the Jihad from MWDA, I was wanting solid infomation to answer my, many many questions. but others loved it so... yeah it was an intreasting experiment in story telling and I respect that they reckonigzed that without novels they couldn't do "busniess as useal" and tried something new