On 17Jun2022 2101, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> I don't believe that any healthy 'imperium' would give up any territory as easy as that.
> Also, as best I recall, it was the 'chunk' of the Sword Worlds that actually became a client state but, then, fragmentation/reconsolidation w/i that subsector has been the norm for centuries & centuries.
I don't know that the Imperium is really that 'healthy'. It's terrible
at fighting wars, has a Navy that's clearly run on patronage and
seniority rather than merit, and shows no real interest in actually
developing the resources it has or doing more for its citizens than
ensuring that the elites remain elites and get to make a profit. What
social mobility there is is all about ensuring that anyone with enough
talent, luck, or patronage to possibly change anything is bought off and
made part of the establishment.

Leaving a million ex-Imperials as 'not quite Imperials' to sweeten the
deal that will end an expensive war before it gets to the 'destroys the
infrastructure of entire sub-sectors' stage seems reasonable for such an
empire (after all, by the time the FFW ended the military-industrial
contractors had probably made their fortunes, and they'll be making
several more in the post-war rebuilds and fleet replacement programs).

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>