So, yes, there is the Core expeditions but akin the lead up to the 5yr plan (or in the case of the Zhodani - the 50yr plan)...
Kafka,
It's more like a 50
century plan in the case of the Core Expeditions.
This awesome length of time is a very critical aspect in any examination of the Consulate's dedication to the Core Expeditions. At the time of the
OTU's present, the Zhodani have been launching core expeditions for
five thousand years. Let me put that date some in perspective:
- The first Zhodani core expedition is launched -4000 IE
- The Vilani stop "exploration" around -4000 IE
- The Vargr invent jump drive in -3810, nearly 200 years after the 1st Expedition
- The Solomani invent jump drive in -2431, nearly 1600 years after the 1st Expedition
- The Rule of man begins in -2204, or nearly 1800 years after the 1st Expedition
- The Aslan begin using jump drive in -1999, or nearly 2000 years after the 1st Expedition
- The Long Night begins in -1776, or nearly 2300 years after the 1st Expedition
- The Third Imperium is founded in 0, or 4000 years after the 1st Expedition
When you remember that the Zhodani have been launching Core Expeditions for millennia, you'll realize that the effort isn't something as fleeting as a government policy. The Core Expeditions represent something at the heart of what the Zhodani believe themselves to be. The expeditions are core part of the Zhodani identity.
Yes, I think, I first read Wounded Colosus when I was in Prague but not having real access to the internet failed to comment then. It struck me a plausible and brilliant resolution to the crisis posed by the Rebellion but somewhat defeatist.
They were meant to be defeatist.
I've never been entirely comfortable with the "life span" of human polities in
OTU history. IMHO, the "life spans" of those polities are much too long and the governments associated with those polities are far too static. Sure, a polity called "Rome" lasted from 753 BCE to 1453 CE, but the "Romes" known to Numa Pompilius, Cincinnatus, Scipio Africanus, Caeser, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Diocletian, Justinian, Irene, Theodora, and Constantine IX were all very different.
In my opinion the Third Imperium of the classic era was the political equivalent of a zombie. It had been originally stitched together out of disparate parts which had only the thinnest of affinities with each other. There is no compelling reason to keep a region as big and diverse as the Imperium together for the period of time it has been together. The cracks began showing as early as the Ilelish Revolt in 418.
After the First Civil War, Arbellatra and her immediate heirs bought the Imperium a few centuries. The creation of the Solomani Sphere bought more time as did the Psionic Suppressions. In fact, it's implied strongly that the Suppressions were an experiment in psycho-historical manipulation and what would the goal of such a manipulation have been but to extend the life of the Imperium? The Rim War bought some more time but, by the time Strephon was elevated to the Iridium Throne, the upper reaches of the Imperial government know the Imperium is living on borrowed time. Strephon is fixated on "carving new channels", Dulinor is mandating sweeping reforms in his Domain, and the mutterings are mounting all around them.
IMHO, the Imperium is actually dead in 1105. It's just too damn big to know that it's dead.
The Strephonic Reforms in
WoCo are nothing but a band-aid on a corpse. They aren't enough to reanimate the corpse as
the Third Imperium of circa 1100 IE. However, they may lead to events that will reanimate
a Third Imperium of circa 1200 which will look very different from all the prior Third Imperiums just as the Rome of Marcus Aurelius looked very different from that of Caeser or Cincinnatus.
I always pictured Strephon's Third Imperium slowly morphing under the long term effects of the Strephonic Reforms into a "'federated" or "republican" Imperium within a few generations. There would be no wide scale separatism so soon after invasions by the Solomani, Aslan, Vargr, and others, but there would be a growing regional autonomy concurrent with a growth in "democratic" governance structures at the county-subsector-duchy level.
If you examine the government structure of Wilhelmine Germany, which was a "federated empire", you'll have an idea of my deliberately vague ideas concerning the post-Strephon Third Imperium. I didn't see the Third Imperium
reforming as much as I saw the Third Imperium
evolving and i wrote the Strephonic Reforms with that idea in mind.
Perhaps, I am naive but I took Dulinor at his word as he was quoted in the Rebellion Sourcebook with a long run objective of transforming the worlds of the Imperium into Liberal Democracies.
I don't think you're naive at all. I do think Dulinor was naive however and GDW wrote his speeches accordingly.
Like the vast majority of "reformers" and "rebels", Dulinor was a dilettante who made all the right mouth noises and then naturally failed when the time came to act. Simply put, he talked a good game. Put another way, he was all hat and no cattle.
I'm also enough of a autodidact historian and natural pessimist to realize that "liberal democracy" is not the always perfect government for all peoples in all places at all times. In some circumstances, liberal democracy is the absolutely worst government possible.
Glad to hear that the Brothers of Dulinor are alive and well out there in OTU.
Like the poor, reformers and rebels will always be with us. Also, like the poor, reformers and rebels are nearly always ineffectual.
Regards,
Bill
