Solomani Rim War: Sector Data M990?

[inexorabletash]

So how could Margaret give control over territories she did not actually control?

And for that matter, why was the Solomani Sphere set at 100 parsecs in diameter? It extends far beyond any border of the First or Second Imperium, so there's no historical precedent.

I think it's just a bombastic claim from the Iridium Throne meant to be a good sound bite and reeking of manifest destiny. "97 parsecs, give or take the Aslan borders and other states and those few worlds we have existing treaties with, and areas we don't control.... well, we pinky-swear we won't claim them ourselves" doesn't sound as good.

 

[LeperColony]

I think it's just a bombastic claim from the Iridium Throne meant to be a good sound bite and reeking of manifest destiny. "97 parsecs, give or take the Aslan borders and other states and those few worlds we have existing treaties with, and areas we don't control.... well, we pink-swear we won't claim them ourselves" doesn't sound as good.

It may also have been an outright imperialistic Manifest Destiny type movement inspired by pro-Solomani factions at court.

 

[RandyB]

It may also have been an outright imperialistic Manifest Destiny type movement inspired by pro-Solomani factions at court.

Or a "give them enough that they choke on it" move by the Vilani at court. Long lives, long memories.

 

[JBRocky]

Or a "give them enough that they choke on it" move by the Vilani at court. Long lives, long memories.

I was going to do some quotes but this is pretty much what I think. Margaret gave the Solomani enough rope to hang themselves and hoped they would, just didn't turnout that way.

Another way to look at it is if Terra has to deal with all the Pocket Realms that didn't join the Imperium then she doesn't, same goes with the Aslan, Hivers and everyone else. It's part of delegation of authority and be careful of what you wish for you just might get it. All Margaret has to do is deal with Terra and if they screw up and make a mess she gets to say "I told you so." Now if they somehow manage to make things work, well now there is a problem, which is kind of what happened and you can tell a good story around it.

Going into a little more detail, if there is a problem with the Aslan which well why wouldn't there be since the Solomani are moving into their territory. If the Aslan complain about this she can go "not us." She can get score political points by asking The Solomani if they can handle something, or if the need help from her.

Also not every group is of the same mind especially the very independent Solomani who will fight among each other for power. While they had a common cause to gain power on Capital they didn't have one to see who controlled Terra. Simply put Margaret set them up to fail and that didn't happen.

 

[RandyB]

I was going to do some quotes but this is pretty much what I think. Margaret gave the Solomani enough rope to hang themselves and hoped they would, just didn't turnout that way.

Another way to look at it is if Terra has to deal with all the Pocket Realms that didn't join the Imperium then she doesn't, same goes with the Aslan, Hivers and everyone else. It's part of delegation of authority and be careful of what you wish for you just might get it. All Margaret has to do is deal with Terra and if they screw up and make a mess she gets to say "I told you so." Now if they somehow manage to make things work, well now there is a problem, which is kind of what happened and you can tell a good story around it.

Going into a little more detail, if there is a problem with the Aslan which well why wouldn't there be since the Solomani are moving into their territory. If the Aslan complain about this she can go "not us." She can get score political points by asking The Solomani if they can handle something, or if the need help from her.

Also not every group is of the same mind especially the very independent Solomani who will fight among each other for power. While they had a common cause to gain power on Capital they didn't have one to see who controlled Terra. Simply put Margaret set them up to fail and that didn't happen.

That depends on who Margaret intended to choke. If the Solomani on the Rim, she failed as you suggested. If the Solomani at court, then I'd say she succeeded, as anti-Solomani sentiment at court was eventually sufficient to support the Rim War.

 

[tjoneslo]

I admit that map is extremely coarse and any conclusion based upon a reading of it is hanging on a very tenuous thread, but look at the spinward theatre. A good chunk of Daibei changed hands, without significant fighting? The Imperials drove far deeper into Magyar than is reflected in the 1105 border.

The map makes it look like the Imperium gained, through the Rim War, systems that it did not capture, and gave up systems that it did. This could be explained by the Armistice using a border with some legal or historical precedent to reset the boundary: and one precedent to use would be those worlds that had joined the Imperium prior to 755.

It's thin, I'll admit -- but if someone else has a better explanation that can reconcile the IE map and the 1105 borders, I'm all ears.

So I'm looking at the map of the charted space in Supp 11 (p.8-9) vs the Battlefields of the Imperium map on p.4 of the Imperial Encyclopedia. The map on the inside cover looks about the same, but has the "Wars" text box covering the spinward size of the rim.

What makes the IE map confusing is it has the full Solomani Sphere border even though they don't claim the whole thing.

On close review I would agree with you. The border in Reaver's Deep, Diabei, Alpha Crucis, and Old Expanses are clearly different. But these are two hand-drawn maps without reference to the underlying stars. And the map in Supp 11 doesn't have subsector borders, making it even more difficult to compare them.

I think you can either recognize there IE map is a hand drawn copy of the earlier (hand drawn) map and assume the differences are due to errors in copying.

Or there is a long political explanation around the idea of the ongoing cold war between the two superpowers constantly overthrowing planetary governments to have the newly installed one claim allegiance to the other side. The changing borders represent the ever-shifting loyalties of those border worlds. Based upon the changes of the borders I'd say the Solomani are getting the better version of that.

It would probably make for a really interesting campaign if the players were into the Great Game as a background.

 

[JBRocky]

That depends on who Margaret intended to choke. If the Solomani on the Rim, she failed as you suggested. If the Solomani at court, then I'd say she succeeded, as anti-Solomani sentiment at court was eventually sufficient to support the Rim War.

True, but then it can also be both at the same time just depends on how you want to tell the story. Brainstorming for more idea just makes it all the better.

 

[Condottiere]

It's also possible that many Solomani power brokers saw the writing on the wall, and relocated to the Solomani Rim, giving them the administrative skills, and possibly capital, that the Solomani movement needed to successfully incorporate these areas under their control.

 

[Whipsnade]

That's a good quote, and I have a hard time explaining what was going on here. We know that many worlds in Magyar and Alpha Crucis never joined the Imperium. We know that the Bootean Federation never joined.

They joined the Imperium at one remove; They joined the Solomani Sphere which was part of the Imperium.

So how could Margaret give control over territories she did not actually control?

Is that a serious question? How did all those European kings, queens, popes, and whatnot give control over territories explored and not yet explored?

And for that matter, why was the Solomani Sphere set at 100 parsecs in diameter? It extends far beyond any border of the First or Second Imperium, so there's no historical precedent.

The region was the Third Imperium's only open border, many of the systems had been Imperial members for relatively short periods of time, and Terra only joined in 583 or thereabouts. There seems to have been a kind of institutional squeamishness when contemplating expansion rimward, which may not be surprising when you consider what happened to the First Imperium when it tried to annex a certain rimward system.

Cleon explicitly chose not to expand rimward with the early Emperors following his lead up through the Pacification Campaigns and beyond. Rather than expanding rimward, Martin instead chose to kick off the Julian War attempting to annex three sectors populated to various percentages by the non-human Vargr. The radius was probably set after squinting at the map and rounding off the distance between Terra and the furthest "pure" Sollie/TC colonies. Consider:

Margaret: "No more discussions. We're granting them an autonomous region. Live with it. The question now is where the border should be drawn."

Lord Aye: Are far rimward as possible.

Margaret: Of course, but it can't be as small as the Sol subsector. There has to be some territory involved lest they choose to be insulted. Besides, we've many pure or near pure Solomani worlds some distance from Terra.

Lord Bea: The Stooge Cluster is about the further concentration of near pure Solomani worlds furthest from Terra, your Majesty.

Margaret: How far?

Lord Bea: The furthest world is about 47 parsecs from Terra, your Majesty.

Margaret: Make it a fifty parsec radius and adjust the display. Any rabidly anti-Solomani worlds within that boundary? Any worlds We wish to remain in control of?

Lord Aye: Rabidly anti-Solomani? Just these...

Margaret: Too few to worry about. They have to adjust, besides they'll still have the right to petition the Throne.

Lord Bea: There are the Depots, research stations, various training facilities, and the like.

Margaret: Just as long as We have more. They're going to need ships and scouts if they're to explore for the Imperium after all. Set the border with the fifty parsec radius and get the paperwork started. I want these bastards off Capital and back in the sandbox We've giving them by year's end.

I've long considered the creation of the Solomani Autonomous Region as a bit of policy meant to provide a tar baby and/or sandbox for the Solomani Movement. The Sollies were supposed to get bogged down in the day-to-day minutae of administrating the already Imperial parts of the region while also distracted by the "4X" effort to annex the non-Imperial parts of the region (something which was never completed thanks to the Aslan and Hivers.) Putting it simply, the Sphere was supposed to be a poisoned gift.

Of course, the smarter parts of the Solomani Movement knew all about the tar baby/sandbox aspects of the grant. They accepted the grant anyway believing they could "flip" the poisoned gift and turn the Sphere into a regional power base from which the Movement would take back control of the Imperium.

And they came close to doing just that too.

As for the differences between the 1105 map and the Wars map in IE, they can be explained by diplomatic horse trading. Each side gave up captured worlds to the other that they felt weren't worth to trying to control post-war and, for various reasons, the 3I gave more such worlds.

Other differences can be explained as the results of wartime operations that couldn't be maintained in a postwar environment. The salient in Magyar, for example, could be the result of the pursuit and destruction of a Sollie fleet by Imperial force. The Imperium made deep advances in that pursuit and temporarily occupied many systems, but it never had the forces necessary to exert full control.

 

[RandyB]

True, but then it can also be both at the same time just depends on how you want to tell the story. Brainstorming for more idea just makes it all the better.

"Both/and" is definitely an option. "Anti-Solomani" correlates strongly with "Vilani", who are culturally long-view thinkers. That kind of multi-level move is easily within scope.

 

[RandyB]

The region was the Third Imperium's only open border, many of the systems had been Imperial members for relatively short periods of time, and Terra only joined in 583 or thereabouts. There seems to have been a kind of institutional squeamishness when contemplating expansion rimward, which may not be surprising when you consider what happened to the First Imperium when it tried to annex a certain rimward system.

Cleon explicitly chose not to expand rimward with the early Emperors following his lead up through the Pacification Campaigns and beyond. Rather than expanding rimward, Martin instead chose to kick off the Julian War attempting to annex three sectors populated to various percentages by the non-human Vargr. The radius was probably set after squinting at the map and rounding off the distance between Terra and the furthest "pure" Sollie/TC colonies. Consider:

Margaret: "No more discussions. We're granting them an autonomous region. Live with it. The question now is where the border should be drawn."

Lord Aye: Are far rimward as possible.

Margaret: Of course, but it can't be as small as the Sol subsector. There has to be some territory involved lest they choose to be insulted. Besides, we've many pure or near pure Solomani worlds some distance from Terra.

Lord Bea: The Stooge Cluster is about the further concentration of near pure Solomani worlds furthest from Terra, your Majesty.

Margaret: How far?

Lord Bea: The furthest world is about 47 parsecs from Terra, your Majesty.

Margaret: Make it a fifty parsec radius and adjust the display. Any rabidly anti-Solomani worlds within that boundary? Any worlds We wish to remain in control of?

Lord Aye: Rabidly anti-Solomani? Just these...

Margaret: Too few to worry about. They have to adjust, besides they'll still have the right to petition the Throne.

Lord Bea: There are the Depots, research stations, various training facilities, and the like.

Margaret: Just as long as We have more. They're going to need ships and scouts if they're to explore for the Imperium after all. Set the border with the fifty parsec radius and get the paperwork started. I want these bastards off Capital and back in the sandbox We've giving them by year's end.

I've long considered the creation of the Solomani Autonomous Region as a bit of policy meant to provide a tar baby and/or sandbox for the Solomani Movement. The Sollies were supposed to get bogged down in the day-to-day minutae of administrating the already Imperial parts of the region while also distracted by the "4X" effort to annex the non-Imperial parts of the region (something which was never completed thanks to the Aslan and Hivers.) Putting it simply, the Sphere was supposed to be a poisoned gift.

Of course, the smarter parts of the Solomani Movement knew all about the tar baby/sandbox aspects of the grant. They accepted the grant anyway believing they could "flip" the poisoned gift and turn the Sphere into a regional power base from which the Movement would take back control of the Imperium.

And they came close to doing just that too.

As for the differences between the 1105 map and the Wars map in IE, they can be explained by diplomatic horse trading. Each side gave up captured worlds to the other that they felt weren't worth to trying to control post-war and, for various reasons, the 3I gave more such worlds.

Other differences can be explained as the results of wartime operations that couldn't be maintained in a postwar environment. The salient in Magyar, for example, could be the result of the pursuit and destruction of a Sollie fleet by Imperial force. The Imperium made deep advances in that pursuit and temporarily occupied many systems, but it never had the forces necessary to exert full control.

Exactly so, and well said!