Rebellion Redux

[BwapTED]

Maybe it works if...

1. the Terrans/proto'Solomani' used fertility drugs, exo-wombs, and cloning to produce scads of extra Terro-humans
   
2. created a jannisary corps
   
3. demolished the artistic and educational culture of the Vilani and forcibly imposed 'Terran' culture (meaning what the military-industrial complex and international capitalist-gov't 'elites' thought the new serfs should know)
   
4. released sterilizing biological weapons tailored to strike the Vilani

This suggests the Rule of Man was a lot nastier than the hints in the books suggest, for a significant phase of its history.
Ramshackle Empire?
Definitely, but for a time it was also a genocidal military dictatorship.

(yeah, I know the SW Empire really isn't that bad. But I like the image and this character fits)

 

[BwapTED]

The Sword Worlders and the Solomani were generally described with a dismissive disparaging tone, as incompetents with moral flaws either aggravated or created for them. Good thing we Imperials have someone to feel superior to. Eat up, your casserole's getting cold.

RE Swordies and Imps:

Darrians

 

[mike wightman]

There was no genocide.

The ZS collapsed due to many factors and the Terran fleets stepped into the power vacuum.

Terran naval officers were dispatched throughout the Vilani Empire. Some travelled on Terran vessels; others jumped using Vilani naval vessels or even commercial transportation. Between -2219 and -2204, more than 100,000 naval officers were
dispatched to the worlds of the Vilani Empire, to take control of the reigns of government, to direct the local bureaucracies, and to maintain peace and order. In some cases, Terran ensigns were faced with governing a whole world, and commanders previously entrusted with no more than a light cruiser were now administering subsectors.
The fact that the Vilani bureaucracy remained intact saved not only the empire, but also the lives of millions of citizens. If the empire had collapsed (and trade had ceased), hundreds of worlds would have died as their sources of supply were cut
off.
The Terran Navy learned to deal effectively with the Vilani, and indeed learned to be sympathetic with the Vilani people. The fact that these new rulers were accepted so openly made it all the easier to see them as friends deserving of respect and protection.

The Rule of Man or second Imperium began with a coup by the Terran Navy against the Terran government in order to preserve aspects of the Vilani Imperium.

 

[BwapTED]

There was no genocide.

The ZS collapsed due to many factors and the Terran fleets stepped into the power vacuum.



The Rule of Man or second Imperium began with a coup by the Terran Navy against the Terran government in order to preserve aspects of the Vilani Imperium.

Right, so goes the official 3I version of history, highly romanticized and cleaned up.

It makes sense.

The Third Imperium from early on had issues with race and culture. Vilani vs Solomani.

When you are trying to legitimize your ruthless commercial expansion across the stars and the interception of worlds that don't submit, you need a good sell.

''We're bringing back the glory of the Rule of Man!"

But also-

''We're also bringing back the Ziru Sirka, too. You see, there was never such a radical break in the first two imperiums. Hiroshi 1st was a wise and benevolent man who preserved much of Vilani culture. Yes, some serious mistakes were made by others, but much of that has been grotesquely exaggerated by Anti-Solomani revisionists."


I'm inspired by some of the T4 background and by a cynical reading of GT Interstellar Wars.

What I have posted above isn't canonical. Yet much of canon history is presented as in-universe historiography, yes? Or is it all WordofDesigner?
People wrote it down? Who says they were all being truthful? Or that their versions is the only reasonable way to interpret the sources?

In any event, a ref can change or reinterpret whatever he likes.
What I'm talking about doing is retaining the canon history, but subverting and reinterpreting some of it. This assumes a lot of game books reflects Third Imperium biases. ymmv

 

[mike wightman]

Right, so goes the official 3I version of history, highly romanticized and cleaned up.

If the Syleans were going to re-write history they would come up with a better story. As it is the story is similar from the 3I perspective and the Solomani perspective.

The Third Imperium always from early on had issues with race and culture. Vilani vs Solomani.

Sylea was one of the worlds where a considerable Solomani contingent ended up. Cleon claiming Solomani ancestry to legitimise his claim to be Emperor is what began the Solomani vs Vilani meme - the Syleans had had no direct contact with Earth for over a thousand years...

When you are trying to legitimize your ruthless commercial expansion across the stars and the interception of worlds that don't submit, you need a good sell.

''We're bringing back the glory of the Rule of Man!"

Yup, and it was quite successful, until they ran into the Julians

''We're also bringing back the Ziru Sirka, too. You see, there was never such a radical break in the first two imperiums. Hiroshi 1st was a wise and benevolent man who preserved much of Vilani culture. Yes, some bad mistakes were made by otehrs, but much of that has been grotesquely exaggerated by Anti-Solomani revisionists. You aren't a racist, are you?"

The Third Imperium never claimed to reconstitute the Ziru Sirka, it would absorb Vland and what little remained of the Ziru Sirka culture, if any, many decades after its founding. It is very debatable exactly what remained of Ziru Sirka culture within the Vland area of influence through the long night.

I'm inspired by some of the T4 background and by a cynical reading of GT Interstellar Wars.

Me too, reading between the lines has always been a necessity for GDW OTU material, I often find some people took it as literal truth, rather than...

Yet much of canon history is presented as historiography, yes?

Yep, it is up to the referee to decide the 'truth' behind the 'history'

People wrote it down? Who says they were all being truthful? Or that their versions is the only reasonable way to interpret the sources?

I agree with you. I choose to interpret in the way that makes the most sense. If the Terrans had committed genocidal cleansing of the Vilani worlds it would be mentioned in some way, as it is there is not hint of it.

There are mentions of the Terran Navy using AI robots in CT and MT sources, hastily forgotten about by the Third Imperium - what happened to them?

Just look at the way MWM's novel Agent of the Imperium shattered pre-conceptions about the Third Imperium.

 

[BwapTED]

But by calling the Rule of Man the Second Imperium, it was claiming that the Ziru Sirka was the First Imperium. So it did make the claim to restore the Ziru Sirka's legacy, I would argue.
The idea is continuity. And for that, you have to scrub out some of the stuff that was done to create a Solomani-dominated 2I.

That's how it looks to me, at any rate.

Ziru Sikra= 1I

RoM= 2I

Sylean empire/Third Imperium= 3I

Cleon wanted to have it both ways. Get broad appeal and who cares about pesky things like the truth.


And, in a sense it is true. The RoM was erected on the skeleton of the ZS. And Hiroshi did make himself regent of the ZS.


But how did everybody end up speaking Galanglic instead of Vilani?
Even if the RoM changed the official language to English on every world...

Hmmm, or am I wrong about Galanglic? Is it a creole of Vilani and English?

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/index.php?title=Anglic_(language)&redirect=no

It might be cool to spin this so that the Vilani influences are very strong in the Imperium's common tongue but weaker in Sol-Anglic.

The Party might well have spent a lot of time and effort promoting 'authentic' Anglic.
On some worlds that meant bringing back a dead language, something only scholars knew well.

 

[mike wightman]

The RoM wasn't declared as a second Imperium, it wasn't even declared as anything other than a regency until a new Emperor or form of government would take over. It was:

When Estigarribia died, he was succeeded by his chief-of-staff, who crowned himself
Emperor Hiroshi II. Estigarribia, although he never assumed the crown, is commonly known to history as Emperor Hiroshii I.

This is a direct line of succession from the Ziru Sirka, so in effect the first Imperium didn't fall until the end of the ROM era.

Third Imperium historians needed the legitimacy of Solomani descent to legitimise Cleon, hence the made up the term Rule of Man and second Imperium.

As to Galanglic the only explanation that make sense is that that was the language spoken on Sylea, derived from the Solomani use of English in much the same way Norman French would bastardise Anglo Saxon to result in middle English. Quite how a language similar to English survive both in the are around Earth and on far off Sylea is another oddity of the setting.

 

[BwapTED]

Kayser-i Rum

:coffeegulp:

But there are multiple possible interpretations.

 

[BwapTED]

RE Anglic survival

GT Humaniti gets into the history of Sylea. IIRC most of the old-fashioned Syleans lived on a reservation and the dominant 'Sylean' culture was Solomani.

Solomani being more a cultural than a racial category.

 

[Condottiere]

Probably closer to the Hellenization of the the Persian Empire.

Alexander and his successors eventually coopted the trappings, bureaucracy, and at least parts of the culture, whether by pragmatism or the seductive quality of authoritarianism.

A new subcaste gets integrated into the elite, and Solomani stronghold settlements are sprinkled across the stars.

 

[Grav_Moped]

A possible explanation for the apparently impossible proliferation of Solmani in Charted Space:

Given the rigidly hierarchical nature of Viliani society, there would be strong incentive for lower-to-mid status Vilani to embrace Solmani culture for its potential of social mobility, even going so far as to "pass" as Solmani if possible (and Traveller's interstellar communication constraints would help with that). Failing that, many would intermarry to provide their descendants with better possibilities.

In other words, a significant percentage of "Solmani" in Charted Space actually aren't -- or have a far more tenuous genetic linkage to Earth than they think.

 

[mike wightman]

How many Normans invaded Britain?

How many Normans migrated once William was king?

How come Norman culture completely changed Anglo-Saxon culture? It didn't replace it, but as the centuries passed the English emerged from the melting pot.

Solomani became the new rulers of the Ziru Sirka, the genetically/ethnically/cultural Vilani began to lose their Vilani cultural norms - many didn't like them anyway.

 

[Condottiere]

Normans weren't the first to crush the Britons under their heel, so in terms of cultural memory, not exactly a shock.

Vilani outcasts who proved useful to the Solomani could have slid up social standing, as well as the elite who recognized the means to solidify that standing.

 

[mike wightman]

Never claimed they were.
Britain was culturally Anglo-Saxon by the time of the Norman invasion. A very small number of Normans settled in England post conquest (compared with the population at the time) and yet the entire culture and language changed.

 

[BRJN]

Back to OP for a moment:
When I read the Rebellion Sourcebook, and Niven's Ringworld Engineers, I saw that they had a concept in common:
"Now we put a blowtorch to inhabited land."

I can write a multi-screen-long essay on the Solomani's embarrassing failure to capitalize on opportunity. But here is the short version:

The Solomani plan for "In The Event of Imperial Weakness Offering an Opportunity" involves charging straight at the glittering goal just out of their reach: Terra. In the Sourcebook they do just that, and little more. But their proclaimed strategic goal is to reunite the whole Solomani Sphere. The fleets at the "tops of the horseshoe" (one way to look at the map) must have orders to make a pest of themselves and tie down / distract Imperial reinforcements that otherwise would travel to Vega and counter-attack towards Terra.

The Solomani leadership along Old Expanses does their thing, recovering worlds that used to be in the Sphere and raiding / scouting deeper into the Imperium. Then they become aware that the Imperial Fleet has … just gone away. Are they going to just sit there? Some strategic genius (or "genius") is going to realize the opportunity: a Schlieffen Plan -like grand sweep into the enemy rear. Conservative Admirals want to attack spinward along the outer edge of the old Sphere, restoring it. Daring Admirals want to move spinward-coreward to add some Imperial territory as a buffer against eventual counter-attack. Politicians, however, like to think big. Suppose the Solomani could create a 'buffer zone' that extends up to the Great Rift? An attack towards Daibei would be in order.

The final direction this attack actually moves in will depend on how much resistance Margaret can muster, and where. I can easily see a nearly-surrounded Imperial fleet backing into the Vegan Autonomous Zone for a generation-long siege. I can also see an overconfident Solomani attack arriving near Daibei Sector and getting clobbered at the end of its supply lines.

 

[BwapTED]

A possible explanation for the apparently impossible proliferation of Solmani in Charted Space:

Given the rigidly hierarchical nature of Viliani society, there would be strong incentive for lower-to-mid status Vilani to embrace Solmani culture for its potential of social mobility, even going so far as to "pass" as Solmani if possible (and Traveller's interstellar communication constraints would help with that). Failing that, many would intermarry to provide their descendants with better possibilities.

In other words, a significant percentage of "Solmani" in Charted Space actually aren't -- or have a far more tenuous genetic linkage to Earth than they think.

I like that.
And it fits some of what I have seen in canon sources, IIRC.

 

[BwapTED]

I imagine there's a debate in the Solomani Party between the genetic purists and the assimilationists.

 

[whartung]

Its intresting to look into the dates given for the history of the 1st imperium, just to marvel at how long it took. the vlani discovered jump back in -9235. That's about the same time as the solomani discovered that other great transportation invention, the Wheel (give or take a few hundred years).


Then, for the next four thousand years, they slowly expand, establish a very loose trade union with the surrounding minor races and bring them up to stellar tech levels, with what is implied to be cordial relations with them.

They eventually grow tired of this and start the Consolidation Wars in about -5,400, or around the same time the Neo-Assyrian empire was consolidating itself with armies that contained some of the first horsemen, who had no stirrups or saddles and fought as pairs, one man holding the reins of the second so he could use his bow.

The Vlani Bureaus reorganised into a single unified state in-5273/753BC, or the traditional date of the founding of Rome. The proclamation of the 1st imperium was -4045 imperial, or A.D. 476, the year the last Emperor of (Western) Rome is disposed. I'm guessing that those two dates coincide with was not a accident.

it took something like 1200 years form the end of the Wars to the first contact with the terrans, and it took the terrans another 200 years to actually beat the Ziru Sirka.

So, even less of an excuse for every ex-vilani world to not be at least TL-11, right? (Banging on the "why are there any low tech worlds left in the Imperium" drum.)

 

[Condottiere]

Rather dependent on whether the Vilani thought it worth installation of planetary defence systems in their core worlds.

The Vargr appeared to have little problems with frontier worlds, who'd you'd suppose have greater incentive to build city walls, or their modern equivalent, orbital weapon platforms.

 

[BwapTED]

Back to OP for a moment:
When I read the Rebellion Sourcebook, and Niven's Ringworld Engineers, I saw that they had a concept in common:
"Now we put a blowtorch to inhabited land."

I can write a multi-screen-long essay on the Solomani's embarrassing failure to capitalize on opportunity. But here is the short version:

The Solomani plan for "In The Event of Imperial Weakness Offering an Opportunity" involves charging straight at the glittering goal just out of their reach: Terra. In the Sourcebook they do just that, and little more. But their proclaimed strategic goal is to reunite the whole Solomani Sphere. The fleets at the "tops of the horseshoe" (one way to look at the map) must have orders to make a pest of themselves and tie down / distract Imperial reinforcements that otherwise would travel to Vega and counter-attack towards Terra.

The Solomani leadership along Old Expanses does their thing, recovering worlds that used to be in the Sphere and raiding / scouting deeper into the Imperium. Then they become aware that the Imperial Fleet has … just gone away. Are they going to just sit there? Some strategic genius (or "genius") is going to realize the opportunity: a Schlieffen Plan -like grand sweep into the enemy rear. Conservative Admirals want to attack spinward along the outer edge of the old Sphere, restoring it. Daring Admirals want to move spinward-coreward to add some Imperial territory as a buffer against eventual counter-attack. Politicians, however, like to think big. Suppose the Solomani could create a 'buffer zone' that extends up to the Great Rift? An attack towards Daibei would be in order.

The final direction this attack actually moves in will depend on how much resistance Margaret can muster, and where. I can easily see a nearly-surrounded Imperial fleet backing into the Vegan Autonomous Zone for a generation-long siege. I can also see an overconfident Solomani attack arriving near Daibei Sector and getting clobbered at the end of its supply lines.

Indeed!

SolCon gets word of certain major events pretty quickly considering the distances involved, and seems not to do much with the opportunities presented, in canon.