The Long Night?

[Condottiere]

That's a plothole.

If the Vilani governors were equipping Vargr mercenaries, it would indicate that they don't have access to high technology.

And if they don't have that, how can they be an actual threat?

 

[mike wightman]

They weren't equipping them, they were hiring them. There is evidence that some vargr would have been at a higher TL than the Vilani...

 

[Condottiere]

You don't necessarily have to have more advanced weaponry, just the imagination and ability to use existing ones better.

 

[Marchand]

There was a chap called Sturn who did a quite elaborate Terran Dawn Campaign Guide, set in the Terran Rim towards the end of the Night - Old Earth Union jostling with Dingir League and Easter Concord.

There are still threads about it on other boards but the site itself seems to have died sadly.

I have his (free) pdf's, but not on this machine.

 

[GypsyComet]

a much greater threat to the Ziru Sirka than the upstart province 'down south' (the real reason the Terrans had such an advantage)

The need for fleets elsewhere would certainly be *a* factor, particularly since Vland was directly reachable by Vargr with some luck. Whether the Vargr ever actually sacked Vland or not, and we have no evidence that they did, the Vilani would have bolstered that region to prevent it, as well as having lots of moving fires to put out in Meshan and Mendan.

The Sack of Gashikan is a Twilight event, enabled at least somewhat by the retreat and disintegration of the RoM. You want a lively region during Twilight, coreward Meshan and Mendan fit the bill.

The Hkhar Return, very late in the Long Night, makes Amdukan a suddenly lively place starting around -220.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

They weren't equipping them, they were hiring them. There is evidence that some vargr would have been at a higher TL than the Vilani...

Vargr in Gvurrdon Sector stole TL-12 gear from the Zhodani, including (explicitly) Jump 3 drives, in -2450 (AD 2069). This was outlined in the CT Vargr supplement, so it's canon. Thankfully for the human race outside of Zhdant, the Vargr did not appear to have acquired meson gun technology from them, as things might have gotten really ugly, really fast, if they'd had.

Admittedly, Gvurrdon is at the opposite end of the Vargr Extents from Vilani space, and the jump topography is fairly challenging in between, but J3 drives ought to make interfacing throughout The Extents significantly easier. And, knowing the Vargr, I don't imagine they have ever been much good at keeping military or technological secrets from one another.

You don't necessarily have to have more advanced weaponry, just the imagination and ability to use existing ones better.

The Vargr, as a rule, do not appear to really consider conquest for conquest's sake to be a worthwhile goal, which likely is the reason why they only managed to yank about one-fifth or so of Vilani space away from the disintegrating Ziru Sirka. Once they got to the more populated and defensible regions around Vland and Lishun Sectors, it probably just was not worth the blood and treasure expenditures for them to push on further.

The Vargr were, and are, always more of a social than a martial danger to human hegemony. But even that is bad enough and, critically, placing their threat so close to Vland itself drew crucial resources away from the Solomani Front, once that opened up a century or so later. It certainly eliminated Makhidkarun Bureau as a threat to Terran ambitions!

Vargr rimward expansion was also hindered considerably by the fanatical resistance put up by the Yileans in Gashikan, Trenchans and Mendan Sectors. But that required committing to a level of genocide that would have made Hitler himself gasp in astonishment.

 

[GypsyComet]

Vargr rimward expansion was also hindered considerably by the fanatical resistance put up by the Yileans in Gashikan, Trenchans and Mendan Sectors. But that required committing to a level of genocide that would have made Hitler himself gasp in astonishment.

They did nuke Gashikan, though. The payback was reportedly worse, but I'm not sure how bad the actual canon is on that front.

But that's really their Trailing expansion, and the Vargr eventually circumvented Gashikan and reached much farther trailing. The coreward expansion seems to have been slowed by stellar geography, as the stars thin out in that direction.

 

[Condottiere]

They are supposed to be Vikings, so it would be push pull.

If they can't raid the Imperium, and they don't appear to have a sustainable domestic [dog] economy, they'll canineabalize themselves.

 

[GypsyComet]

Sustainable domestic economies are not the rapid charisma building choice, but they will exist. The Vargr would not be interstellar if they didn't have *some* capacity for stability.

 

[Condottiere]

They're Moties; it's just a vixenicous cycle.

 

[GypsyComet]

They're Moties; it's just a vixenicous cycle.

I don't agree, and this isn't the topic for it.

 

[Condottiere]

It makes no sense that any planet with an established space defence system couldn't hold off a Vargr raiding party.

At best, I think described by Space Viking, is that they can do is chicken stealing.

If they came en masse, like a Waaagh, I'd take them more seriously.

The moment a planet realizes it's been abandoned by it's interstellar hegemon, it will have to come to the logical conclusion it will have to defend itself from space predators, as the planetary elite would be well aware of extraterrestrial threats.

Outside of those that fall in social collapse.

 

[mike wightman]

The Vargr were a great unknown for the Vilani. Many of their raiding parties were equipped to a higher TL than the Vilani defences.
The province nobles tried to do deals with some of them, hiring them/paying them off but all the while keeping the true nature of the threat hidden from their overlords.

There were a lot more Vargr than there were upstart Terrans, so when the threats became known the Ziru Sirka were a lot more worried by the Vargr incursions, which gave the Terrans the breathing room they needed to reverse engineer Vilani tech, steal from Vilani knowledge repositories, and make the TL leap that the Ziru Sirka were so desperately afraid of.

 

[GypsyComet]

The Long Night does see trailing Windhorn and all of Meshan flip from Vilani/RoM control to Vargr control. That likely came from both the corridor as Vland waned and from coreward by Vargr not interested in tangling with Gashikan (yet). The complete change of control would probably look different in each system, with some genocides, both purposeful and "accidental", some harassment into retreat toward stronger human worlds, and some enslavement.

 

[whartung]

It makes no sense that any planet with an established space defence system couldn't hold off a Vargr raiding party.

I guess the question becomes how long can they maintain a space defense system.

If there's no threat from space, it gets difficult to justify spending money on it.

If the society is in technological decline, it gets even more difficult.

A world that started with such a system, may not still have one after a 100-200 years of isolation.

They also may not have the infrastructure to spool one up, ad hoc or not, after "Neo-First Contact".

 

[Condottiere]

The thing about Viking raids is that they worked because they came as a surprise, leaving little time to get an organized defence together.

It's hard to sneak up on a planet, with working sensors.

Maybe there's some monastery somewhere on the asteroid belt, or a mining outpost on a distant moon that's vulnerable, but unlikely in the Goldilocks zone.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

My statement about the Vargr not raiding the Vilani capital comes because there has been no previous reference to "The Sacking of Vland".

Vargr or no Vargr, in earlier days it seems that there was little reason for the Vilani to be prevented, yet they did not go Spinward. The Vilani & Vargr DGP map along with much of the narrative shows the Vilani did not go that way. That map is dated -3500 and indicates this is as good as their borders got. This predates the Vargr discovery of Jump, so Vargr were not involved in making limiting Vilani expansion. Meeting the Zhodani was not impetus enough to get Vilani going Spinward either to bring these other psionic humans under their heel.

This is the reason I reject the simple analogy to Viking raiders. The canon material suggests something else stopped expansion. Could be as mundane as crappy planets or some scary heretofore unknown X-risk. Maybe the Zhos brainwashed the Vilani. Guesses?

 

[GypsyComet]

there was little reason for the Vilani to be prevented, yet they did not go Spinward.

It's a difficult direction to go with J1, and still pretty iffy with J2. Once the Vargr rolled into the corridor, occupying four or five bottleneck systems with dragnet tactics will allow them to catch any J2 ship that tries to go spinward.

 

[mike wightman]

My statement about the Vargr not raiding the Vilani capital comes because there has been no previous reference to "The Sacking of Vland".

Vargr or no Vargr, in earlier days it seems that there was little reason for the Vilani to be prevented, yet they did not go Spinward. The Vilani & Vargr DGP map along with much of the narrative shows the Vilani did not go that way. That map is dated -3500 and indicates this is as good as their borders got. This predates the Vargr discovery of Jump, so Vargr were not involved in making limiting Vilani expansion. Meeting the Zhodani was not impetus enough to get Vilani going Spinward either to bring these other psionic humans under their heel.

This is the reason I reject the simple analogy to Viking raiders. The canon material suggests something else stopped expansion. Could be as mundane as crappy planets or some scary heretofore unknown X-risk. Maybe the Zhos brainwashed the Vilani. Guesses?

I am intrigued as to where you got the notion that it has been suggested the Vargr halted Ziru Sirka expansion - they didn't. Nor have I ever seen a reference to them ever getting as far as Vland.

What limited the Vilani expansion was the range of the jump 1 drive - the consolidation wars were all about bringing the whole of explored (by the jump 1 Vilani) charted space under the hegemony of the jump 2 Vilani, the Vargr didn't discover the jump drive until after the consolidation wars concluded and the Ziru Sirka declared.

The Ziru Sirka then settled into hundreds of years of maintaining the status quo, with very little evidence of much new exploration beyond the Imperial border.

Put another way, what stopped expansion was the Vilani themselves...

[as to why this should be I have my own theories based on what we have learned from MWM about the real story behind the Vilani jump 2 drive]

The Vilani never made contact with the Zhodani, but there is evidence of Vilani refugee/dissident/settlers in the Spinward Marches (Vanejen and Algine), these were settled during the Long Night.

The Vargr began raiding the Ziru Sirka 1400 years after their own discovery of the jump drive, plenty of time to have gone up a few TLs, to have explored as far as the Zhodani and the Ziru Sirka, and to spot the easy targets waiting within the Ziru Sirka frontier worlds. That local officials would then try to buy them off or employ them to use against their enemies just made the whole enterprise of raiding the weak Ziru Sirka even more attractive to Vargr raiders.

Did the Zhodani learn of the existence of the Ziru Sirka via the Vargr...

 

[mike wightman]

The GURPS Interstellar Wars book is more helpful in regards of setting the stage. The only unanswered question I concerning the Rule of Man, The Long Night and the early Imperium is "Where are the Vargr?"

I prefer primary sources rather than secondary. GT ISW was the result of the GT authors interpretation of canon. Go back to the original source and you will see they have simplified the situation some what, The Vargr Alien Module, the Imperium boardgame...

A. In GURPS IW, Vargr raiders are described as "becoming a major threat to the Vilani Imperium", only held back by it's primary fleet. Because of the Terran threat to the perceived potential legitimacy of rival Imperium (Terrans are "humans", Vargr are NOT) is a "Greater Threat", they send the fleet to the Rim. The Terrans destroy the Vilani fleet with the newly invented Jump-3 and Meson Guns.

This is an 'interpretation', original canon states that the Vargr began raiding the Spinward border of the Imperium and one of the local governors decided to hire some as a mercenary force. Imperial provincial governors towards the end of the Ziru Sirka were loath to lose face by asking for resources from the empire and often hid the true nature of threats. The Vargr threat wasn't just that they were raiding but also that they were being invited in.

The vargr could well have had jump 3 by the time they were raiding the Imperium, there is no evidence they invented meson tech though.

So what were the Vargr doing The Rule of Man and Long Night? The primary Vilani fleet was gone. They crossed the Windhorn going Trailing. What held them from travelling further Rimward? They were already raiding the Vilani Imperium. Allegedly the Vilani have no official possessions outside its borders. That was the point of the Vilani Consolidation Wars.

How many Vargr were there and how fast do they reproduce...

the Vargr had a couple of colony worlds within the lair system when the jump drive was developped. How many Vargr left their home system? How many colonies did they establish? Just how fast could they grow their population in the 1400 years they would have before encountering the Imperium?

As to the point of the consolidation war - they were to bring the whole of then charted space - space that had previously been explored, developed, colonised, trade deals done etc under the firm control of the Vilani rather than the loose arrangement prior to the consolidation wars.

Where did the Vargr go? Was there a die-back? Did they get sucked into The Long Night and if so, how did they get to Mendan, Amdukan and form the Protectorate?

See above, there were never that many to start with...