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On Mon, 2/8/16, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TML] Persistent fellow, springboard for ideas....
To: "tml" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Date: Monday, February 8, 2016, 2:17 PM
On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 at
3:53 PM, Bruce Johnson
<xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
wrote:
>
>> On Feb
8, 2016, at 10:38 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> By
mid-1107, the BOE had realized it was more cost effective to
hire
>> small merc units to
preemptively hunt down and "terminally dissuade IG
>> kinetic business practices.”
>
> So let me get this
straight:
>
> We’re
talking about known terrorists aligned with a interstellar
polity hostile to the Imperium, and criminal arson acts are
being committed undermining the world economy and the 3I and
local government leaves it to the business to hire
"merc groups”?
>
> Sounds much more like the bank manager in
question is trying to eliminate competition for his
money-laundering/insurance fraud sideline...
>
Spent a lot of time digging everything I could
out on the lead up to
the 5th Frontier War
on Efate.
Lot of digging thru TNS for the
time frame, then the Wiki, then old adventures.
This little slice of 3I history has been where
my players have been
playing the last few
months of real time, and I worked very hard to
get them caught up in the final months leading
up to the Siege of
Efate.
The destruction of the
freaking TAS building at Efate starport was
accepted as a "civil war" /
"local issue" that the Imperial Marines
were told not to mess with.
The 3I continued denying there was any tie
between the IG and the Zho
right up until a
couple hundred days before the Zho fleet arrived.
They denied there was any Zho activity on the
border worlds right up
until the Zho fleets
showed.
Officially.
At the same time, the
availability of merc units drops, none of them
accepting contracts, until the 3I drops the
hammer on the IG on Efate,
intervening in a
3+ year long "civil war" / "local
disturbance" with
massive shock and
awe.
So - known terrorists
that the 3I repeatedly denied were affiliated
with the Zho in multiple TNS reports, working
to undermine the
Imperial presence on Efate,
were officially ignored by the 3I.
There's some non-canon text about Efate
indicating that the local
gov't
wasn't highly trusting of the Imperium, and were
particularly
picky about "we don't
want the 3I to have an excuse to spread troops
out all over our planet, we'll take care of
this ourselves"
It
wasn't until definitive proof of Zho involvement was
delivered to
both the local "parties of
influence" that they agreed there was
off-world influence and that they could trust
the Imperium to deal
with it. (IMTU, it was
my group of players who captured a Zho spyship
in the process of delivering munitions to the
IG that was the final
straw of proof)
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As I remember there was enough of a schism w/i the imperial naval command, at this time, that the, subsequently proven to be incompetent, senior admiral of the 'Marches felt compelled to create an 'Office of Naval Information' as a counterbalance to the original ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). Once hostilities commenced, Norris spent quite a bit of time & effort to acquire an Imperial Warrant in order to remove said incompetent & take control of the war effort. I also recall something about the incompetent having the support of the Duchess of Mora, self-styled 'senior duke' of the marches, & also that there was quite a bit of friction between her & some of the, so-called, 'latecomer junior dukes' such as Norris, Duke of Regina.
In SJG's timeline, which it now seems is going to be adopted by MM as 'official', Norris, after becoming ArchDuke of Deneb, moves the capital from Deneb to Mora, after which both sides agree to a mutually amicable arrangement & 'bury-the-hatchet'.
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