Leaves in the wind, shuddering (UC 4973-5)
I think it an extraordinary aggressive play"
Pava paused her calisthenics and turned to look at the analysts ghost, drifting in the air to the side. The image was coloured to indicate it was a full and real-time telepresence on Evaias part rather than an avatar giving a report. Pava issued a quick invocation to dial down the resistance field before she resumed and replied.
Fools rush where the wise fear to tread
You think them foolish then maam?
No Evaia, its just the old proverb. I do think one can confuse an active campaign of aggression with a moderate intention but poor assumptions.
Evaias expression radiated a polite doubt at that idea, so Pava decided to continue.
Consider their originating context; meshed in one of the deepest arteries of the old hegemony, there you could push and elbow all you liked because everyone else was also well off, and they operating in that sort of jostling intellectual framework. Doing poorly one cycle just meant you gracefully bowed out and prepared for the next big thing or resource load. But out here things are lean and savage, relationships are old and stable and treasured as the thing that keeps you from starvation. What was just standard practice in one context is a dangerous insult in another; things are seen as a more zero-sum situation and a meteoric rise can only be conceptualised as taking from the common pool.
That is an astute reading of the situation maam
but does it affect the outcomes what their intentions were?
No I suppose it doesnt
The Treaty of Abell, signed in 4971 to equilibrate the situation on Oia has been the pivotal piece of diplomacy in the midst of the forest these past few years. Originally intended to just stabilise the borders of the Oiat Kingdom, in its wide ranging and sometimes vague provisions both Standardite and Csserian politicians seem to have taken it as a postponement on hostilities, seeking to gather strength for the next confrontation and deliberately standing back from each others affairs. This to the cynical observer provided them both time to tend to other interests whilst the Mernt bled and cried; the Standardites that followed the Commodores seeking to grab and hold the entirety of the planet Mern as a new homeworld, the Csserians dealing with their resource deficits and assembling a web of trade. The various Mernt polities which would have gladly battled the Standardites in Buxe and Abell were forced to follow the Csserian lead (some say urged by Csserian diplomacy) and stay quiet or only battle the Standards on their local front. No Mernt state had or has the military calibre or logistical capacity to mount the crusade on Mern and Oia they so desire. But the Treaty is up for renegotiation or abandonment this coming year, and active conflict might erupt as all peoples of the Forest are in very different positions to how they were five years ago.
The Commodores of the Standards have been something of a paradox during their time in the Forest; the government of a people who despise the very concept, authors of random spasms of action against wayward Standards whilst shouting the need for stability and coherence. The edicts of this oligarchy have been driving their Standardites in a new direction. Even as they secured their hold over Mern in 74 and expelled all but the most hidden of Mernt guerrillas from their holdouts in the shrines of the Old Continent, they chose not to revive the old township concept of Standard but instead continued to exert autocratic authority through military channels and quickly struck down internal dissent. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is when they razed some of the outlying villages in the loyalist Ridgelands region of Oia in order to spur their residents movement to Mern. If you had asked a Standardite of three decades prior what their reaction to a government body taking apart peoples homes would be, youd probably miss the answer when a posse started saddling up halfway through your opening sentence. But the Standardites of then hadnt suffered the vicissitudes of interstellar war and the thorny path of migration; most who would protest have already died or broken with the Commodores already. The very timbre of the society on Mern had changed, and carving their place in the universe against those who would condemn them seemed more important than old principles or even survival. When the other Standardites began calling them The Fleet as a pejorative, the hard eyed loyalists embraced the name (perhaps because the other trending name - The Commodores Fascist #@%*£-Boys, didnt really work as a demonym).
The Standards of the Fleet saw some benefits from the more focused rule of the Commodores as accepting it from hate and habit. Given years to actually settle and establish themselves economic activity on Mern started to pick up, fuelled by goods stolen from the Mernt and sprawling new open pit mines on ancient Mernt holy sites and cities. Judicious rationing of resources through the lean years has seen the Fleet Standardites come through to the other side producing a surplus in everything but the Fleets need for volatiles. One major thread in both the development and the cultural shift was the group Adamas professionals who continue to make their home in the new Fleet capital of the Elric Mountains, organising city life and whispering in the Commodores ears. The economic base of the Fleets new homeworld is much improved from three years ago and certainly on an upward course for now provided the fuel keeps on flowing. Previously anaemic private industry has even started up again, with some clans building housing and mining complexes on the face of Mern.
On Oia things are much more complicated; many of the more Fleet inclined population had already migrated to Mern, but there continued to be flow back and forth as space and work opened up so the overall loyalty of the population left in the Ridgelands was hard to judge. Kia Common had been left as military governor and instructed with the orders to both keep the Ridgelands under the Fleets control and retake the Great Basin from Janos Typical. Common however decided these orders were contradictory; there was every indication Typical was now on the Csserian payroll and his forces would work with the new Oiat army that the Csserians were bankrolling and possibly start a general war. In addition the fact that the Commodores had seen fit to withdraw the entire fleet to Buxe and SAF2 meant she was without space support and the Csserians had open skies to relay details of her armys movements to the inferior but numerous foes. Since in her estimation attacking might mean theyd lose and probably mean theyd damage the Ridgelands, and that that regions agricultural production was the only thing standing between the fleet and starvation, the Commodores could eff right off. The more aggressive amongst the Commodores glowered at this and threw efforts into a way to counter the Csserian space forces and threaten their habitats. The results, a tough little missile picket named the Bullshark for some reason and very capable of pounding domes from a distance whilst still being carriable by the
Neer Do Well Tramps, may enter production next year.
The Fleets other great effort in the run up to the end of the treaty was a grand diplomatic tour of the Spinwards subsector in order to try and drum up support and friends. A small trade convoy linkage to Lipsid Beta was also set up at the same time whilst the millions of tons of Csserian and Hankish haulers that ply the Lipsid Beta <> SAF2 run may dwarf the Fleets efforts, a dedicated connection was deemed invaluable. At Lipsid Beta the Fleets diplomats engaged in an interesting strategy; rather than trying to downplay any of their own issues and crimes, they instead took efforts to smear the Mernt as blood-sacrificing primitives and poison the well against the Csserians. Some sectors of the Cathedral found this message very compelling when combined with the massive influx of Csserian commercial interests seeming to press at the established powers of the Cathedral. In particular the Valk saw a potent threat to their volatiles monopoly in the form of aggressive Csserian and Praxzen salesmen pushing the output of Torpors new pumping stations. It surprised few (outside the Csserians) when the Valk made the Standards of the Fleet sign a rather humiliating agreement whereby the Standards would provide bases and unlimited military support for any Valk action in the Forest, and only receive a unguaranteed quantity of volatiles in return. Since by that point the supply line would be the literal lifeline of the Standardite economy, the Commodores had to put power before principle once again.
After the Circum-Cathedral stop, the Standardite diplomats headed onwards towards Atooa, where their message was rather more positive about themselves and called back to shared Dathic values, though they still stuck with a good lump of anti-Csserian sentiment. It took little to convince this media market that the Mernt were a wrecked people and that Dathic refugees needed the living space more (though they didnt like the idea of whole scale genocide), and they were already primed to dislike the Csserian expansion. Even the mild Yanii had some businessmen with loud and negative things to say about the Csserian push into Spinwards markets and making it progressively more difficult for Yans trade to get off the ground. The Standardite diplomat remains at Atooa at the current time, and it is to be seen what if anything comes of the backroom discussions there.
As a final diplomatic flourish days from the ending of the Treaty, the Commodores have released a rather interesting propaganda statement their intent to rename the planet Mern to Reliance. As a calculated insult to get the Mernt utterly incensed they really couldnt have done better than to profane the very name of their goddess. It remains to be seen what this indicates about the Standard attitudes on returning to the treaty table, or if they will at all.
Meanwhile the splinter factions of the Standardite migration have been having a harder time of the last few years, and after the attacks by the Commodores and foreign powers only three independents remain. The composition of these groups were drawn from both ends of the spectrum; those to rabidly invested in the Standardite ideology to stomach the changes the Commodores were making, and those to stubbornly practical to think the erratic and confrontational path the commodores were plotting was a good idea. Naturally this makes for calm and level headed debates about policy. On the outer moon of SAF10s outer Giant planet a small band tries to keep a low profile and engage in a little light smuggling activity. On Oia Typicals army and those that follow him still hold out, sustained by Csserian subsidy. The Csserians of course have trouble keeping their negotiations with the group a secret, and it is know theyve extended an offer of finding them a new home somewhere in exchange for assistance is a possible battle for Oia. Many Mernt and Csserians decry the Csserian government over this appeasement of possibly unreliable Standardites The Treaty of Abell in Miniature as one newsgroup dubbed it. Typical and his cabal know their situation is both desperate and untenable for the number of people that follow him, and are willing to take any deal that provides a future. The final group are the followers of Rico Regular on SAF1 I, who are nearly at the end of their struggle for the Vale their end. A charitable organisation has been set up in circum-Cathedral space and provided a substantial loan from the LOFG in order to aid The Knights in their struggle for their world. The Knights used these funds to substantially upgrade the weaponry of their soldiers and have begun smashing Ricos forces at every opportunity. Whilst the new equipment has only really brought them bare parity with the Roughnecks, the vast numbers of the Knights are allowing them to grind their foe down. Only the limited coordination of the Knights Shining Legion and skipping from region to region of SAF1 I has allowed Ricos forces to escape total destruction, but they are on their very last legs. The punishment the Mernt of the Vale are likely to inflict on the Standardite settlers in the twilight regions of the planet is likely to be brutal and bloody. Also of note are the Standardites who have decided to hang the whole idea of the migration, and are slipping into the lower levels of the large cities of the Segmentum Hanksville, Atooa and even Larsilla itself in search of something to keep their families fed.
If the Fleet Standardites have buoyed and risen, the Csserian Confederacy has exploded. What was already a strong economic base in the city of Larsilla has battened on cheap immigrant labour and a generous tax regime and power allocation to private industry (particularly once the problem with the fusion reactor cores was sorted out), but the real boom sector has been in interstellar trade. Csserian financial magnates and government officials, the two being never far apart, conceived and executed a vast superhighway of trade weaving a cord between SAF6, Abell, SAF2, and Lipsid Beta. Praxzen and Cathedral products and vast amounts of resources flowed up and down and around this linkage, with Csserian financiers and shippers and insurers enacting a cut at every stage and sending that wealth back to Larsilla. Not that Larsilla was parasitic; the cities own production and markets provide a strong thread in the rope binding the heart of the Forest to the grand Cathedral. Perhaps the most ambitious of all the Csserian efforts was their successful breaking into the Cathedral financial markets themselves. Whilst the Cathedral powers are old and sophisticated, they dont have the understanding of the fractional derivatives and complex futures markets needed to grease the cogs of interstellar trade that is the Csserian bread and butter. The feat may be hard to repeat though, as the Csserians seem to have carved out the boundaries of complexity the Cathedrals markets can handle, at least for now. In search of more growth the Csserians have entangled Lipsid Alpha and Lipsid Gamma in their web of trade, both which offer small but solid future opportunities. If the Csserians had tried or intend to try to be more aggressive still; wrestling financial market shares from the companies that currently hold them, their acumen compared to the established powers gave and gives them strong chances of success. Not that that might be the best course of action, for the rapid Csserian expansion has scared and irritated all manner of existing commercial entities in Cathedral space, and their push for Lipsid Gamma seems set to irk the Yanii and Corans who have been both eying potential markets there.
As we turn closer to their home system the Csserian victories seem more muted however. In SAF2 their successful joint operation with the Praxzen at Torpor has been humming happily along, and the flow of trade through this very important junction system is providing vast opportunities for growth. But the Csserians have dropped the ball with their efforts focused on Lipsid Beta, rather than quickly securing all the transhipping occurring at Torpor for themselves, they left a window open for a new actor to play a role. For such a vast highway of trade would attract the Hankish like moths to a flame; and the vast Hankish merchant fleet has pushed out from their sorting point at SAF3 to enwrap and copy the lucrative Csserian routes, touching at Abell, SAF2 and Lipsid Beta. The Hankish commercial agents followed closely behind, and were able to easily grab shares of the SAF2 markets nigh unopposed by the Csserians. They were even able to snatch a sliver of the shipping routes at Abell itself! The Hankish intrusion has the magnates of Larsilla very worried about their bottom line, for the Hankish have the potential to set up Abell<>SAF3<>Lipsid Beta as a competing route to Abell<>SAF2<>Lipsid Beta and funnel some of SAF2s existing trade through a system the Hankish have near complete control over. Some might scoff at the Csserian fretting over the Hankish, who have less than half the total market value under their control the Csserians do, but others would reply that the Hankish have yet to start leveraging access to the vast primary resource stockpiles their trade partners in the Handmaidens possess on behalf of Hankish interests.
As an almost casual sidenote the Hankish traders rolled into Buxe in 74, something the Csserians were treaty bound to avoid, and nigh effortlessly took control of the shipping markets from the Standardites, as even the Commodores preferred reliable Hank-Sobor deliveries to and from other systems over the more
adventurous delivery structure Standardite shipping concerns adopt. In a way this was even a good thing for the Standardites, as their own shipping is insufficient to bring the total Valk shipment of desperately needed volatiles to Buxe on its own.
In Abell itself where the greatest Csserian worries occur; despite strong growth in Larsilla and all trade sectors including the recently explored media and data markets, the underlying problems facing the Csserian state remain and intensify. To whit; the oldest problem of having the entirety of the Csserian nation and wealth shelter under a single fragile dome, and the old problem vast tide of immigrants drawn to Larsillas safety and wealthy and assimilating and housing them all. There were new problems of defending the far spread and hugely lucrative trade network from aggression and predators, and that this rapid growth might be driving a bubble of poor future planning that might burst at the slightest set back and drive the Csserian economy from the heights into the pits. The first and third problems remain unaddressed beyond the launching of a single
Shepard class torchship to vindicate the design principle, but the second has been confronted with a battery of measures vastly expanding habitation space and social services. Some measures fail miserably, like the expansion of hydroponics to provide jobs for newly arrived Mernt merely creating a ghetto caste of hydroponic worker as native Csserians are priced out of the menial labour market and the Mernt forced into a socially expected job, but some succeed well enough. Some Csserian commentators might say too well as a they attract yet more displaced Mernt from Buxe and even see Standardites applying for residency, but others dont really see the issue with a polity that is nearly 40% of non-Csserian peoples. Whilst the good times are rolling and the economies flying high those optimists might even be correct.
Much like the Standardites, the Csserians embarked on a diplomatic tour of Spinwards in an attempt to build friendships. Unfortunately they didnt engage in any of the dirty tactics the Standardites employed, and instead hosted boring functions and meetings. When set against the backdrop of the Csserian commercial expansion Larsillas envoys were coldly received in Lipsid Beta and Atooa, as actions speak louder than transparent diplomatic waffle about respect from those who whine about vulnerability at the same time as rising to the foremost economic position in the Segmentum. It is only at Lipsid Gamma that they are greeted in a friendly manner by the Firzonat, who are very interested in breaking free of the Valk volatiles monopoly and who would be perfectly willing to buy all of output of the Torpor pumps each year. The Csserians would have to disappoint them on that point however as their entire share of the Torpor output isnt nearly enough to cover the needs of their fleet and the never-ending thirst of Larsilla.
To the various Mernt factions the Csserians had been advising them to hold back and be patient, something hardly likely to quell anger as the Standardite rape Mother Mern, and without decisive action of some sort in the treaty renegotiation the Csserians will lose a lot of credibility amongst the minor factions and the ghettos of their own city. The one group of Mernt who remain steadfastly on the Csserian side is the Oiat, to whom the Csserians have been providing a steady stream of funding and technical advice to keep them afloat and allow them to assemble much more significant armed forces than the rabble the Standardites demolished seven years ago. The Oiat at least are ready to take the battle to the Ridgelands at a moments notice, emboldened by the confusion and arguments between the Standards on Oia, and are confident that Larsilla is behind them.
The final participating polity in the Forest, the Praxzen nation, has also been active these past few years. Unlike the open Csserians or the noisy Standardites, the Praxzen only show outsiders what they want to be shown, and rarely enough at that. To many of the common citizenry in the Forest the Praxzen appear only as the shadowy silent partner to the Csserians, or even only as a logo on products the Csserians are selling. Towards governments and high end interests the Praxzen are slightly more vocal and a number of high profile agreements have been made with the spinwards powers and banks, culminating in the grand trade show of PRAX in circum-Cathedral space in 74. Unlike the more slapdash Standardite diplomacy tours or the frankly dull Csserian visits, PRAX was a well-funded and slickly executed diplomatic product from top to bottom [PRAX story at the end]. For its intended primary audience it worked well enough; impressing the banks with Praxzen capabilities, interesting the Niovgroyokians in Kathekon itself, and causing the Firzonat and some lesser Cathedral habitats to exclaim something along the lines of shut up and take my money. The greater powers didnt take quite as kindly to PRAX however; the Valk seeing them as another aspect of the Csserian conspiracy and detesting their divergence from baseline humanity, the Corans seeing another competitor for the high end technology markets, and the BIR having no personal ill-willing but worrying about the upset to the tranquillity they have worked so hard to create.
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