The Experiment Continued (BT)

[khatun]

The real question is how friendly space america is with the other space america of the setting (that is, the Taurian Concordat, given it's enshrinement of many individual rights of it's citizens, despite the whole technically a monarchy thing)

 

[Blasterbot]

The real question is how friendly space america is with the other space america of the setting (that is, the Taurian Concordat, given it's enshrinement of many individual rights of it's citizens, despite the whole technically a monarchy thing)

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At a guess they will like each other. That said I don't think that they have borders with each other so they likely will only have limited trade and friendly relations like the USA seems to be aiming for here with everyone.

 

[Gladiusone]

Tanaka paled, and ordered his men to bring the Coordinator and the Ambassador with him. Parker was as good as his word. Hovering half a mile over the city was an enormous aerodyne dropship. It had to be at least a hundred and eighty meters long, and bristled with cannon, lasers and rockets. More than a dozen smaller craft swarmed around the alpha-predator, each one training their own batteries of rockets on Unity Palace, and the noise was beyond description

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…. Wonderful. The Americans have developed teleportation, or perhaps cloaking technology that allowed their DropShip and small craft to penetrate the single most heavily patrolled, observed and protected airspace in the entire Combine, and magical powers to prevent any of the ground-to air turrets, aerospace squadrons and assault ships from SHOOTING IT DOWN?

I wonder if they will trade their secrets?

 

[Psyckosama]

…. Wonderful. The Americans have developed teleportation, or perhaps cloaking technology that allowed their DropShip and small craft to penetrate the single most heavily patrolled, observed and protected airspace in the entire Combine, and magical powers to prevent any of the ground-to air turrets, aerospace squadrons and assault ships from SHOOTING IT DOWN?

I wonder if they will trade their secrets?

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Yur jus jelly uv ma FREEDOM!

 

[Gladiusone]

Yur jus jelly uv ma FREEDOM!

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Ah yes, the magical FREEDOM charms that somehow makes American's immune to the consequences of THREATENING TO NUKE A CAPITAL CITY OF A SUCCESSOR STATE INCLUDING ITS RULING LORD!

 

[Silverbullet]

Ah yes, the magical FREEDOM charms that somehow makes American's immune to the consequences of THREATENING TO NUKE A CAPITAL CITY OF A SUCCESSOR STATE INCLUDING ITS RULING LORD!

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We get away with that all the time, ask Beijing.

Not that I don't agree it's odd how the were above the palace.

 

[Praetor98]

…. Wonderful. The Americans have developed teleportation, or perhaps cloaking technology that allowed their DropShip and small craft to penetrate the single most heavily patrolled, observed and protected airspace in the entire Combine, and magical powers to prevent any of the ground-to air turrets, aerospace squadrons and assault ships from SHOOTING IT DOWN?

I wonder if they will trade their secrets?

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I changed that on SpaceBattles actually. It's a small warship in low-Luthien orbit rather than a dropship. It seemed more sensible.

 

[Psyckosama]

Ah yes, the magical FREEDOM charms that somehow makes American's immune to the consequences of THREATENING TO NUKE A CAPITAL CITY OF A SUCCESSOR STATE INCLUDING ITS RULING LORD!

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Like I just dun got fin sayin', ma FREEDOM!

 

[Praetor98]

Like I just dun got fin sayin', ma FREEDOM!

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Hey if the Clans could do it, why can't these guys? But I might need to make some changes. I'm still growing as a writer.

 

[Silverbullet]

No worries bro, just keep going and ask questions as you please.

 

[Alex842]

Sending a grateful glance towards the old man, Adams picked up the theme. "Those ships arrived in thirteen systems on the edge of an open cluster. The plan has succeeded. Those first thirteen worlds have turned into prosperous colonies, and new ships have called at those worlds for the last fifty years. So gentlemen, it's decision time. We can stay here on Earth, where we will be packed off to concentration camps the moment it is convenient for the new leadership, or we can leave the old world as our forefathers once did, and seek freedom in the new."

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So unlike the original concept these colonies are a several decades long project instead of one desperate exodus. Considering how corrupt the TA was towards the end I could see it.

I still find the idea of colonizing thirteen worlds at once to be silly. Even with the numbers we're talking about now they really aren't enough to be split up across multiple worlds. I could see them having surveyed another twelve good colonization candidates, but this far from any possible support they need to focus on establishing themselves on one world before moving on to others.

The idea that McKenna, Amaris and ComStar were backed up by the same group is interesting. If any evidence could be provided then I'm sure the Clans would be very interested to know about the shadowy cabal that betrayed the Camerons.

with nearly ten million persons aboard, asleep in cryo tubes.

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Weren't cryogenic tubes a late Star League era thing? I'm sure they weren't widely used and became lostech.

More than the sovereign states of Earth had passed into history. Night had fallen on civilization itself.

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The Terran Hegemony wasn't North Korea or Maoist China. And wasn't the disassembly of the individual nations done under the Terran Alliance? I seem to recall the TA fighting their own Reunification War before interstellar colonization got started in a big way. There's something in the Belter material about a lot of them being descendents of refugees from that war.

Six hundred inhabited planets, all united by an ideal. When the Star League fell to infighting, most Americans had put the old country out of their mind, getting on with their lives and refusing to enter into the wars that raged across the 'Sphere.

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A very respectable growth rate from 10mil or so would give you a reasonable population for half that number of worlds. A significant amount of immigration until the Reunification War brings us close to this, though I would expect a few dozen of those worlds to be territories.

Still I do like the states remaining States and the implication that the Federal government has stayed relatively limited. Of course with six hundred, or even three hundred states it would be incredibly difficult to have any effective central authority. Even with HPGs there needs to be a lot of low level autonomy.

In this age of war, such an idea as an ambassador was something of a new concept,

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Even when two nations are at war there is plenty of work for ambassadors. Unless it's a war of genocide the two or more sides will still need to talk to each other.

Now here was one of the brutes, launching a shuttle the size of a 747 down towards the Lucien Davion DropPort.

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A 747 is only around 450 tons max take off weight. That's pretty small compared to practically any aerodyne dropshop. The wingspan probably isn't very impressive either.

"How many Battlemechs do you have?" the First Prince asked, feeling increasingly lost at sea. "Tell me you at least have those."

Pinckney looked somewhat confused, and he asked the First Prince what he meant.

"You know, battlemechs, humanoid machines, the weapons that have dominated warfare for the last five hundred years?"

Pinckney brightened and said, "Ah, you mean combat walkers. Those make up the armored reconnaissance squadrons in the army's combat divisions. They're useful, but they hardly dominate warfare. If anything dominates, it's the navy, and even they only have a shadow of the tens of thousands of ships they used to have."

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This exchange feels off. For one thing the topic is something that should come up later and at the level they're talking in more specifics than they should.

As for fleet size, the Neo-Americans left the IS before what would later be called civilian jumpships were developed. So it could be that technically all of the jumpcraft in the USA are what the IS would call warships, but an American wouldn't think of it like that.

As I said in the general BattleTech thread, you could have the American attitude towards armed civilian ships be more or less like what it was in early America. If it's honorable to contribute to the national defense by having an armed ship then you could have a lot of decent warships at little cost. It probably won't be a big deal to the merchants. Over the service life of a ship the extra cost of weapons won't be much and the various shipping companies will probably get into dick measuring contests over it. You would mostly be looking at frigates and smaller, but that should be fine.

The Federal Navy would probably be small and lean heavy.

This could allow for a story without a curbstomp. After contact with the IS is established some ship owners realize that they can pretty much name their price in the IS. Even standard jumpship services with warships would command a high price.

"My cellular phone," Charlie responded, "Excuse me, but I think I'd better take this."

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Cell phones aren't exactly unknown to the IS, at least not on developed worlds, though I don't think they use that name. More importantly, cellphones require infrastructure and an American cellphone wouldn't work on whatever infrastructure exists on an IS planet.

 

[Praetor98]

Glad to have some feedback.

So unlike the original concept these colonies are a several decades long project instead of one desperate exodus. Considering how corrupt the TA was towards the end I could see it.

I still find the idea of colonizing thirteen worlds at once to be silly. Even with the numbers we're talking about now they really aren't enough to be split up across multiple worlds. I could see them having surveyed another twelve good colonization candidates, but this far from any possible support they need to focus on establishing themselves on one world before moving on to others.

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Perhaps it should be, "Over these last fifty years, we have discovered thirteen systems capable of supporting life, in fact they're capable of supporting a great deal of life."

The Terran Hegemony wasn't North Korea or Maoist China. And wasn't the disassembly of the individual nations done under the Terran Alliance? I seem to recall the TA fighting their own Reunification War before interstellar colonization got started in a big way. There's something in the Belter material about a lot of them being descendents of refugees from that war.

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As far as these fellas are concerned, the Hegemony is the start of putting the clock back. And yes, technically it was, but to these guys, the fact that McKenna planned to do away with even the formalities of a representative government meant that the forces that spewed him up were certain they could act with impunity.

A very respectable growth rate from 10mil or so would give you a reasonable population for half that number of worlds. A significant amount of immigration until the Reunification War brings us close to this, though I would expect a few dozen of those worlds to be territories.

Still I do like the states remaining States and the implication that the Federal government has stayed relatively limited. Of course with six hundred, or even three hundred states it would be incredibly difficult to have any effective central authority. Even with HPGs there needs to be a lot of low level autonomy.

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I haven't really decided how many systems are full states and how many are just territories.

Even when two nations are at war there is plenty of work for ambassadors. Unless it's a war of genocide the two or more sides will still need to talk to each other.

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True. I should correct that to, "Who's sending the ambassador? We have diplomatic contact with every state in the Inner Sphere, and quite a few from the Periphery. Who's out there that we don't have contact with?"

A 747 is only around 450 tons max take off weight. That's pretty small compared to practically any aerodyne dropshop. The wingspan probably isn't very impressive either.

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It's a shuttle, not a DropShip. They don't use WarShips and DropShips as people understand them.

This exchange feels off. For one thing the topic is something that should come up later and at the level they're talking in more specifics than they should.

As for fleet size, the Neo-Americans left the IS before what would later be called civilian jumpships were developed. So it could be that technically all of the jumpcraft in the USA are what the IS would call warships, but an American wouldn't think of it like that.

As I said in the general BattleTech thread, you could have the American attitude towards armed civilian ships be more or less like what it was in early America. If it's honorable to contribute to the national defense by having an armed ship then you could have a lot of decent warships at little cost. It probably won't be a big deal to the merchants. Over the service life of a ship the extra cost of weapons won't be much and the various shipping companies will probably get into dick measuring contests over it. You would mostly be looking at frigates and smaller, but that should be fine.

The Federal Navy would probably be small and lean heavy.

This could allow for a story without a curbstomp. After contact with the IS is established some ship owners realize that they can pretty much name their price in the IS. Even standard jumpship services with warships would command a high price.

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True. Probably I should do something to clarify American merchant shipping.

 

[Praetor98]

If Charlie Woods' first meeting with the Coordinator of the Combine was nervy, the meeting between Alexander Cushing and the Capellan Chancellor on Sian was very nearly murderous. Whereas the Draconians had been cautiously hospitable, with their superior attitudes well-concealed, and maintained at least a façade of impartiality, the Capellans immediately began to take the ambassadorial party for a ride.

Instead of proceeding directly to the Celestial Palace as Cushing had expected, they spent at least three hours being shown various sites around the city. That night, they were taken to a hotel that had been assigned to them, which turned out to be completely empty. When asked for clarification from the State Department, Cushing replied that, "Aside from the staff, there was no one in the hotel, so far as I could ascertain."

The party was utterly isolated by the Maskirovka from any contact with the locals on the planet. This wasn't the Ministry of Security's true name, it was only an appellation grafted on by others, but they wore it proudly. The ambassador and his party swiftly learned that they were not tourists, they were on a tour. And the guides had all acted like people who'd had the script patiently explained to them by someone with a red-hot branding iron.

Perhaps they had.

At any rate, the Capellan interlocutors took them all over Sian, in an obvious attempt to impress the peripheral barbarians with the strength of the greatest nation in the Inner Sphere. The factories were hardly as large as some in the big American manufacturing centers, and the monuments to past Liao Chancellors made Cushing's eyes sore. It took a whole week of the party being patronized rigid by their guides before the Chancellor, or the Celestial Wisdom as people in the Confederation called him, condescended to meet with the American envoy.

The Celestial Palace was the size of the Weiyang Palace on Earth, destroyed many centuries before McKenna's Coup. They wandered through endless galleries of jade and gold, being shown the endless gifts sent to past Wisdoms by various dignitaries, leaders and monarchs around the Inner Sphere. Through all of this, Alexander Cushing walked as though in a dream. It was as though he had been transported back in time a millennia and more to the dark days of the socialist empires that had lain across the heart of Eurasia.

As they followed the guides, Cushing cursed Elias Liao in the privacy of his own mind for what he and his descendants had done. Suddenly he was brought up short by one of the security agents. And there, striding down the hall towards them, that could be no one but Maximillian Liao himself, the old wolf of the Confederation. This was the man who had had his own father assassinated, and brought the Confederation back from the brink of defeat through the sheer force of his will. From what Cushing had been able to learn, Maximillian Liao was possessed of a demonic personality, a granite will, uncanny instincts, a cold ruthlessness, a remarkable intellect, a soaring imagination and an amazing capacity to size up people and situations.

Two men in black and green stood to either side of him, and three people with a marked resemblance to the Chancellor followed behind. The elder two were women, but the youngest was still only a boy.

"Who are they?" Cushing asked his chief of station, acting temporarily as a secretary, "Relatives? Or clones?"

"Relatives. They're his children, Candace, Romano and Tormano."

Cushing couldn't stop a wince. "I was afraid of that."

As the dossiers had it, Romano Liao was even more unstable than her father.

Maximillian deigned to favor the ambassador and his wife with an elegant nod. To be looked down on by sovereign pride was of course a great honor in the Inner Sphere, but Alexander was too sophisticated, too civilized, too down-to-earth to do more than return the nod as one man would for another.

"Barbarian," said Romano, the middle child, "Why do you not abase yourself before the Celestial Wisdom?"

Cushing was taken aback. He'd expected hauteur on the part of his hosts, but this outright rudeness surprised him.

The Chancellor's voice was gently correcting, though he did not turn to face her. "Romano, curb your temper with our guests. They are come from the Periphery, and know not our ways."

"I think I can see your ways well enough," was Cushing's rebuttal.

Maximillian's smile was delighted, with just a hint of irony. It was clear he'd noticed the sarcasm, but was in a good enough mood to let it lie between them.

"Indeed. You must be eager to get down to brass tacks, as I believe the expression to be?"

"The thought has crossed my mind."

"Then perhaps you would join me for tea?"

The ambassador nodded, graciously, and the two of them went to one of the palace's innumerable pavilions to speak in as private a fashion as Capellan security measures would permit.

"So, what impels the united States to end her isolation?" Maximillian asked Cushing, who had just finished a brief recital of America's history after the Terran Alliance's fall.

Cushing chose his words carefully. "My government is of the opinion that peace is soon to be had by all."

Maximillian smirked and said, "Ah, so you have recognized that the Confederation is soon to win this war?"

The sarcasm was laid on so heavily that Cushing mirrored the Chancellor's expression.

"Actually we don't think you're going to win this war. You haven't been trying to win any more than the others, you've just been going through the motions of raids and counter-raids with the occasional capture of a planet, slowly sapping each others' strength. No one has really been trying to win the war since it was declared. My own personal opinion is that we will soon see a return to the status quo of the prewar period."

Maximillian's stare was long and calculating as he murmured, "My word, but you Americans are tactless. I'm amazed you've survived as long as you have."

"Where I come from, it's considered a crime to kill a man for what he says."

The Chancellor's laugh was a gunshot in the silence of the teahouse, "And I suppose the rivers are flowing with milk and honey too? I can put up with a ration of drivel, but it mustn't be pure babble from the padded cell. Mister Cushing, I'm not going to listen to one more word of this!"

"Is it so impossible to believe there's a country where human decency isn't just paid lip service?!"

"As a matter of fact it is. Now why don't you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, and mind your own business?"

"Why should we, it's not as if anyone here does!"

Both Cushing and Maximillian were standing face-to-face, chest-to-chest, and scowling at each other with such ferocity that the MASK agents shadowing them wondered if the two would come to blows. Finally, the Chancellor raised his head to stare down at the ambassador imperiously.

"Let us suppose for a moment that I believe you. Why should I consent to the united States establishing an embassy on Sian?"

"Other than common diplomatic courtesy?" Cushing asked, coldly. "This would be a first step to normalizing relations between our countries. Trade could be regularly established as a result, and if the Confederation plays her cards shrewdly, she could be exporting products to the whole of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery beyond."

"May I take that to mean you intend to help the Confederation reestablish the Star League?" he asked, as if he did not already know the answer.

"To hell with the Star League. We spent centuries resisting its inroads, the last thing we want is to see it return. And it's not as if you would have any more legitimacy than the Camerons did when they created it in the first place."

"My family claims the First Lordship, you know," Maximillian said, mildly.

Cushing rolled his eyes, "There is no more First Lordship, and there is no more Star League. It died with the Camerons, and without the Camerons, it's never coming back."

The Chancellor rubbed his chin and sat back down, "Elaborate."

Cushing took this as an opportunity to sit down himself as he began to speak, "Let's be honest with each other sir, the Star League was imposed by the Camerons, who forged it with naked force, and held it together with naked aggression. In many ways it was a macrocosm of the Terran Hegemony, in that it was an artificial state born of no popular force nor even of an idea except that of conquest, and held together by the absolute power of the ruler, by a narrow-minded bureaucracy which did his bidding and by history's largest army.

"Besides which, it was possible to create it in the first place thanks to the unique circumstances at the time."

Liao seemed interested with the man's words. He at least found it amusing. "So, by your logic, one should either attempt to engineer circumstances to achieve the same conditions as Ian Cameron found when he reached out to my ancestor four centuries ago, or simply take circumstances as they are and move accordingly."

"And I don't know who has the resources and the pull to change the 'Spheres so much that such a thing could be achieved."

Maximillian steepled his fingers and said, "An interesting conundrum, no?" in tones as cold as lightning.

"Then I take it you have no issue with the opening of an embassy?"

The two rose and bowed, each man a model of stiff politeness, and Maximillian Liao said, "Sir, you are an honored guest at the Court of the Celestial Wisdom. I give you my word that so long as you are on this planet, no harm shall come to you."

Cushing was sensible enough to notice the wording. Just as Maximillian knew he would.

XxX

Apart from that first somewhat ugly meeting, the American embassy was established in the Outer City without much in the way of fuss. And as the weeks wore on, the conversation between the two statesmen had begun to grow in Maximillian's mind. He wanted that power over the Sphere that the Star League had possessed.

He sought to build a future in which the Capellan Chancellor spoke, and all Humanity took heed of his words. But how could he change the circumstances so as to engineer the rise of the Confederation to supremacy? Was there some power out there with enough money and pull to decide the fate of nations? And if there were, could he convince them to work with him?

It would be an alliance of convenience of course; both sides would enter into the partnership intending to betray the other once their usefulness was at an end. But he'd always been good at that sort of game.

 

[malhavoc431]

snip

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Not entirely certain why the Unified Systems are willing to endure Draconis "Honor" and Capellan Fuckery. The US have the warships and industry to ensure that if they fuck around, they will most certainly find out. Though I suppose at least a token embassy to observe the basics of diplomacy is needed. If for no other reason than to have a place to feed false information, funnel asylum seekers, and answer angry phone calls. Those working in those embassies might want to have several platoons of the equivalent of the Doomguy on standby though.

 

[Praetor98]

Omake for anyone who's interested: A group of Americans idly challenge a bunch of Clanners to a football match.

 

[Corvus 501]

Omake for anyone who's interested: A group of Americans idly challenge a bunch of Clanners to a football match.

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How widespread is gene modding in the United Systems? If one side uses Elementals, the other would need to use something like myonemr armor to match, seeing as the US doesn't seem to use that level of germ line modification.

 

[Praetor98]

How widespread is gene modding in the United Systems? If one side uses Elementals, the other would need to use something like myonemr armor to match, seeing as the US doesn't seem to use that level of germ line modification.

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It's mostly a matter of comedy. Some American guy boasts that there's nobody better at the game than him and his friends, and these clanners take him up on that challenge.