Leading Edge of Exploration (or How Dumb Are Your Vilani?)

[Whipsnade]

Everyone?! You wound me, Bill. Here and I was afraid that people thought that those Vilani were all I ever talked about around here.

G.K.,

By "everyone", I was only referring to those who had posted in this prior to me.

It's still a major achievement, though, even with J2 at their disposal. It shouldn't be forgotten how much more challenging the astrography gets for low-jump ships once one gets rimward of Massila Sector.

It certainly would have been tough exploring and fighting with only jump2, but thankfully there were brown dwarfs in each and every one of those gaps...

... brown dwarfs in every single one of those hundreds of gaps EXCEPT the gap between Sirius and Sol.

Or so G:T tells us.

Defeat had already been seeping in from the core for a while before the Terrans made contact. The Vargr were capable of jump-3 for centuries prior to the ISW period...

Funny how everyone always forgets Gvuurdon's Story isn't it? Of course the OTU history we're reading in canon is mostly written by the political descendants on the Rule of Man.

... my best guess is that entire sectors of the core-spinward edge of the Ziru Sirka was swarming with them by the time the Terrans even knew there was such a thing as a 'jump drive'.

And then there's my belief that the Terrans didn't overthrow the Ziru Sirka as much as they provided the Ziru Sirka with it's last ruling dynasty.

You should have heard the squeals at the JTAS forum when I brought up that particular idea during the run-up to the GT:ISW play test. The old Terra Uber Alles schtick has a powerful romantic hold on many people.


Regards,
Bill

 

[BlackBat242]

Like the way the Huns, Mongols, and other Mongolian tribes kept invading and "conquering" China... only to find themselves absorbed by the bureaucracy, and thus simply being "the new Ruling Dynasty of Imperial China", unable to bring their "conquest" into the Mongolian culture and structure?

 

[jatay3]

G.K.,

By "everyone", I was only referring to those who had posted in this prior to me.



It certainly would have been tough exploring and fighting with only jump2, but thankfully there were brown dwarfs in each and every one of those gaps...

... brown dwarfs in every single one of those hundreds of gaps EXCEPT the gap between Sirius and Sol.

Or so G:T tells us.



Funny how everyone always forgets Gvuurdon's Story isn't it? Of course the OTU history we're reading in canon is mostly written by the political descendants on the Rule of Man.



And then there's my belief that the Terrans didn't overthrow the Ziru Sirka as much as they provided the Ziru Sirka with it's last ruling dynasty.

You should have heard the squeals at the JTAS forum when I brought up that particular idea during the run-up to the GT:ISW play test. The old Terra Uber Alles schtick has a powerful romantic hold on many people.


Regards,
Bill

The Second Imperium was quite a bit different from the First and Solimani culture was never simply assimilated. At the very least the Second Imperium did indeed have Jump-3
which of course made life more difficult for the Vargr.

Speaking of which, Jump-3 is not like Mongol horses; it needs bases. The Vargr could never have resisted a sustained attempt to obliterate every Vargr settlement in the destrict and it is not as if Villani considered delicacy in matters of war, a virtue. And while Vilani didn't normally go in for sustained attempts, with enough provocation they would have, and in any case the Vargr simply did not have the staying power to resist. Neither did Terra at first but that soon changed. It never did with the Vargr. Assuming that a rabble of pirates would have continually worked until the Zira Sirka fell and the Imperial fleet had done nothing is not necessarily true. The First Imperium did not have to catch up to Vargr ships. They could have destroyed Vargr settlements systematically. The Terrans were the only power to challenge the Villani on an imperial scale. Vargr were just raiders. The mere fact that a zebra was bitten by a tsetse fly before a lion killed it, does not necessarily mean that it was not the lion that killed it.

But all this is sketchy argument not a conclusive one. It's main point is that the assumption that the First Imperium would have fallen anyway is arguable, but not certain. And that in any case the minimizing of the Terran effect is not supported enough to defend too dogmatically. If nothing else, there would have been no Third Imperium without the Second. And by the way, your last line is kind of a curious one. Do remember that we are talking about a space opera. Things are supposed to have "A romantic hold on many people".

 

[whitedalek]

or hidden psychohistorical manipulations in the background...
< Young Frankenstein dramatic music cue & thunder sound efx >



"these aren't the Hivers you're looking for..."

 

[BwapTED]

or hidden psychohistorical manipulations in the background...
< Young Frankenstein dramatic music cue & thunder sound efx >



"these aren't the Hivers you're looking for..."

Could be, but I have serious doubts about the whole 'hiver manipulation" and "psychohistory' thang. Both elements strike me as implausible, almost Virus-level implausible. Yup, I say that in full awareness of a setting with things like Jump and psionics.

YMMV

 

[jatay3]

Could be, but I have serious doubts about the whole 'hiver manipulation" and "psychohistory' thang. Both elements strike me as implausible, almost Virus-level implausible. Yup, I say that in full awareness of a setting with things like Jump and psionics.

YMMV

That's what they want you to think.