"I don't know about the above. It would seem like that the alien incursions were reaching a new level when you read the Rebelluon Sourcebook."
Kafka,
That's odd. It was the same Rebellion Sourcebook; especially the bits about Imperial, colonial, and planetary naval strengths, that convinced me that the Alien Incursions with nothing but a load of editor mandated, metaplot codswallop.
"The Vargr were ralling behind a chrismatic holovid that was leading them like Napoleon."
No. That entertainment holovid isn't planning strategies, leading troops, or arranging for supplies. All it is doing is stirring up passions, which then have to be channeled into something like successful action. During the recent unpleasentness in Iraq, US psyops detachments were able to goad Iraqi defenders into making foolhardy assaults on prepared US positions. Merely goading the Vargr into attacking the Imperium doesn't ensure any actual success. In fact, it almost assures the opposite.
Pull out your maps and look over Corridor and the Extents sector opposite it. Add up popualtions, starports, tech levels, and make a guess about force levels and abilities. There is no way the Vargr can do what they purportedly did, unless via an editor's metaplot 'deus et machina'. It's totally implausible and we have to live with it because what happens afterward in the OTU depends greatly on it.
"The Aslan were just accelerating their slow move into the Marches as the might of the fleet was diverted elsewhere, I always thought of them red ants... small and insignificant, as individuals (or this case one clan) but then when they begin their march as a swarm, even the best defenses will fall under the constant assault."
No. The Imperium has been able to keep the ihatei out of the Reaches for centuries, why would 6 gunshots in the Throne Room change that? The Reaches fleets were not redeployed, so we don't even have the same lame excuse used in Corridor.
The ihatei are arriving in paramilitary ships obsolescent by Heirate standards and thus 3 or more TLs lower than the Imperial Navy. The ihatei are also saddled with colonists and all their supplies. They aren't arriving in massive strike fleets. Again Rebellion Sourcebook puts the upper end of the popualtion of any ihatei fleet in the thousands and they aren't all naval crews and marines.
Furthermore, the Daibei faction is able to keep the ihatei out of their territory even while fighting the Solomani and Daibei is much closer to the Heirate and thus closer to more ihatei. If Daibei succeeded, why does the Trojan Reach fail? Because the metaplot required it to, that's why.
All of this is moot anyway. Canon says it happened, TNE depends on it happening, so we've just got to hold our collective noses and live with. I know I do.
Larsen
Kafka,
That's odd. It was the same Rebellion Sourcebook; especially the bits about Imperial, colonial, and planetary naval strengths, that convinced me that the Alien Incursions with nothing but a load of editor mandated, metaplot codswallop.
"The Vargr were ralling behind a chrismatic holovid that was leading them like Napoleon."
No. That entertainment holovid isn't planning strategies, leading troops, or arranging for supplies. All it is doing is stirring up passions, which then have to be channeled into something like successful action. During the recent unpleasentness in Iraq, US psyops detachments were able to goad Iraqi defenders into making foolhardy assaults on prepared US positions. Merely goading the Vargr into attacking the Imperium doesn't ensure any actual success. In fact, it almost assures the opposite.
Pull out your maps and look over Corridor and the Extents sector opposite it. Add up popualtions, starports, tech levels, and make a guess about force levels and abilities. There is no way the Vargr can do what they purportedly did, unless via an editor's metaplot 'deus et machina'. It's totally implausible and we have to live with it because what happens afterward in the OTU depends greatly on it.
"The Aslan were just accelerating their slow move into the Marches as the might of the fleet was diverted elsewhere, I always thought of them red ants... small and insignificant, as individuals (or this case one clan) but then when they begin their march as a swarm, even the best defenses will fall under the constant assault."
No. The Imperium has been able to keep the ihatei out of the Reaches for centuries, why would 6 gunshots in the Throne Room change that? The Reaches fleets were not redeployed, so we don't even have the same lame excuse used in Corridor.
The ihatei are arriving in paramilitary ships obsolescent by Heirate standards and thus 3 or more TLs lower than the Imperial Navy. The ihatei are also saddled with colonists and all their supplies. They aren't arriving in massive strike fleets. Again Rebellion Sourcebook puts the upper end of the popualtion of any ihatei fleet in the thousands and they aren't all naval crews and marines.
Furthermore, the Daibei faction is able to keep the ihatei out of their territory even while fighting the Solomani and Daibei is much closer to the Heirate and thus closer to more ihatei. If Daibei succeeded, why does the Trojan Reach fail? Because the metaplot required it to, that's why.
All of this is moot anyway. Canon says it happened, TNE depends on it happening, so we've just got to hold our collective noses and live with. I know I do.
Larsen
), but am not convinced that anything short of outright treason by the governments of Tobia/Trojan Reach (cf. the Solomani 'conquest' of Old Expanses) could even possibly create a believable handwave for the aslan conquests. So, since my game isn't set in the Marches, I've conveniently ignored them (accounts of the conquests are known in Massilia, but that's at the far end of a very long game of 'telephone' from Tobia -- by the time "Ihatei colony-vessels spotted in Pax Rulin subsector" crosses 6-7 sectors and numerous political boundaries it may very well sound like "Tobia captured by aslan -- Glisten besieged!"). 
. 
