Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
And the moral of the story is there is always someone bigger and stronger...
Not really. The Romans weren't all that strong at the time of Alexander's death. In fact he probably would have ended up conquering them if he had lived. He seems to have been contemplating attacking Carthage, which would have got him involved in Sicily, and...
For what it's worth, in the long run the most successful "Successors" were probably the ones that weren't Macedonian! The Parthians ended up with the old Persian heartland, Chandragupta ended up with the Indian provinces and so on.
But anyway, Travellerising all of this... The most difficult question is still the Solomani.
I can't see any way of avoiding giving them control of all or virtually all of the old Solomani Sphere, and possibly having some client/buffer states beyond that. Of course, pacifying all of this is another story!
We can assume, of course, that they would experience significant tensions as a result of their success, with the factional balance of power being significantly disturbed. They could very easily come down with a major case of political indigestion.
I suppose, notionally, that this effect could kick in somewhat earlier, but that feels a little too "convenient" to me.
As for the rest of the Imperium - the post-Alexandrian analogy suggests that at least some of the factions would be likely to be defeated and destroyed. That feels right to me on another level, as it weakens the contrived stalemate aspect of the MT setting.
So Strephon's faction would be defeated. Brzk's probably crumbles after his assassination. And, well, it's not too hard to envisage both Dulinor and Lucan getting what's coming to them.
Once Dulinor and Lucan bite the dust, the two biggest Imperial factions - the only ones with any serious chance of victory - could easily fall into internal crisis and paralysis.
Margaret, of course, would become the
"legitimate" Empress, but at that point it would mean nothing, and she would be hard pressed to fend off the Solomani, so she couldn't take advantage of the situation.
So, if the Solomani can be plausibly neutralised, it's not at all difficult to develop a situation combining both a handful of little Imperiums and as many little pocket empires as you would like.
And that was, of course, the point of the Rebellion in the first place.
Alan B
