So the only way the Consulate could expand would be to through Vargr held space.
Kafka,
The Consulate can only expand through Vargr-occupied space? Of course not.
Leaving the Core Route aside, the Consulate's borders pass through 12 different sectors. In one sector the border contacts the Imperium and Vargr and in two sectors the border contacts the Vargr alone. If the Zhos want to expand they have nine other "free" sectors to chose from. Why would they then chose to expand at the expense of the largest human polity in Charted Space or at the expense of an alien species who cannot be fully assimilated?
I don't think you've quite grasped the basic nature of Zhodani expansion either. Leaving the Core Route aside, the Consulate essentially stopped expanding
two thousand years before the
OTU's present. Aside from relatively minor fluctuations, the Consulate's borders haven't changed from one thousand years since
before the Imperium was founded.
Such stasis isn't some government policy that could be reviewed, such stasis is a basic way of thinking. Expansion goes down the Core Route. Such thinking is what makes the Zhos the Zhos. More importantly, such thinking is what makes the Zhos know they are Zhos.
You aren't going to see the Zhos "pinch off" the Domain of Deneb. They have stable borders already, they needn't expand in that direction, and the Imperium threat has been handled relatively well over the last five centuries. The Domain of Deneb also inflicts a strategic incubus on the Imperium; the Zhos and their allies can threaten the Domain far more easily than the Imperium can defend it. The Zhos would be silly to remove this "glass jaw", it is much better for them if it continues to exist.
I know that the Corridor was part of the Vilani Imperium...
That's debatable. We've the official maps in
Vilani & Vargr which show little penetration by the Vilani to spinward, but we've also continued mentions of Vilani governors arming Vargr for political power plays along with Ziru Sirka-era Vilani colonies in Deneb, the Marches, and beyond.
I believe there were a lot of spinward and coreward Vilani colonies "off the books" prior to contact with the Solomani and even more were set up after the Terran Confederation began kicking ass. Records of these colonies were deliberately lost or no records existed to begin with in order to hide them first from political enemies in the Ziru Sirka and later from the Terran Confederation.
... but as was other parts of Chartered Space that were permanently lost to aliens.
That portion of the Ziru Sikra you refer to is now known as the Julian Protectorate. I'll point you to the Imperium's success in re-incorporate those "lost" territories.
... If we include things like Vanguard Reaches & Beyond, surely, we can make the case for deeper incursions into the Marches by the Zhodani than had previously thought about.
Stable borders do not equate no cross border activities. In fact I've long suggested that the Zhos conduct a vigorous "over the border" presence. We've been told explicitly that the Zhos spied on the Darrians after the Maghiz, have client states in Foreven, control their Vargr border through targeted kidnappings and brainwashings, interfere with inter-polity politics in Far Frontiers, and intervened quite strongly several times in the affairs of a HMR polity, the Vlaz-something-or-others, coreward of the Consulate. Hans Rancke also opines, and I tend to agree with him, that the Zhos routinely engage in the low cost, long term, passive terraforming of targeted worlds beyond their borders.
The border only marks where the fortress proper ends, after that there's a rather large defensive glacis that needs tending.
Yes, the OTU, has the Zhodani being very conservative about expansion. However, if we are to accept the Jacksonian heresy, then we have to accept also that this policy is up to constant revision, as it is in any democracy.
I believe the "Explore the Core Route" paradigm is a crucial part of what the Zhos believe themselves to be and thus cannot be revised by a "vote". I also think that, while Zho border policies are under constant review and revision, large scale expansion is reserved for the Core Route. Furthermore, if a paradigm shift did occur, the Consulate would have borders in
NINE other sectors that could expanded without effecting the Imperium and Vargr.
Given their use of psionics, the Consulate is very much a "group think" society in which fundamental policy changes appear gradually. They've all but ceased expansion along the Consualte's proper borders, even worlds taken in the Marches from the Imperium centuries ago have yet to be incorporated into the Consulate proper. The Zhos are epitome of gradualism.
Exactly how the Lords of Thunder are protrayed within the Great Herd. That is exactly why it would take a coup d'etat by the Lords to basically get the rest of the Herd to move along the same path. Play into their instincts and fears, first, increase the number of crazies via scuttle means - propaganda, external threats, show trials, etc. Then offer "volunitary innoculations" against said threats.
I don't buy a lot of
M:1248's ideas and K'Kree volunteering to be "chopped" by an insane cybernetic lifeform is one of the ideas I really don't buy.
Anyhow, back to the issue at hand, Stephon became the tyrant from the moment he ascended the Iridium throne. It is not a judgement on the man but the institution. Just as there is a Brothers of Varian, I could easily someone having a Brothers of Dulinor in an ATU.
I don't think a "Brothers of Dulinor" or other similar organizations need to be part of an
ATU because I believe they're already part of the
OTU.
"Wounded Collosus" is a brilliant piece of writing but it negates some of the chances of reform.
The reforms in WoCo were written to resemble reforms that a participant in the system would suggest. Strephon grew up in the Imperial system, was educated in the Imperial system, is the titular head of the Imperial system, and presumably loves the imperial system. His reforms are going to work within that system, not destroy or replace it.
I'll point out that, at first, Dulinor has the same viewpoint as Strephon. He's commits treason to reform the system and not to replace it.
It reads very much like the people who write Soviet history who deny the possibility of reform and often bypass viable historical alternatives that actually existed or were comprehensive models that were stillborn.
It does so for the reason I mentioned above. You're also one of the very few people who've noticed the Soviet/Pact analogies I purposely wrote into WoCo. Fred Ramen was one of the first.
Dulinor, I see, as leading the crusade and changing the order of things.
Dulinor plans on working within the system at first, then, when he breaks with the Imperial ideal and founds the Federation, he finds himself employing tactics right out of the Imperium Handbook to suppress a rebellion in Verge. Dulinor never leads anything resembling a crusade because he, in his heart, is a dilettante.
Regards,
Bill
OTL means original time line. ATL means alternate time line. HMR mean human minor race.
