Sure, but until their members, their impression isn't germane to my point.
That's the kind of thinking that prevents them from ever becoming members. In fact, their opinions are most germane while you are trying to get them to become members. Once they are in the system, then you can subject them to neglect.
Right, but his millions/billions of slaves as well as the sentimental value of Capital is another story, when it's tactics and results are debatable.
The sentimental value of Capital is likely to be intensely negative. In the Wilds, the association between Lucan and Capital will likely be very strong, and Lucan is the most hated figure ever. Even his name has become an adjective for insanity and cruelty (Survival Margin, pg. 103).
I hate to keep using WW2 references because I don't want to belittle the actual atrocity, but the Collapse posited by TNE is orders of magnitude "worse" (for lack of a better word) than the Holocaust. Essentially everyone in the Wilds is Jewish. You imagine bombing Berlin is going to produce galactic outrage?
It is a 1248 Retcon. I don't find it inconceivable since in macro, some "Star Vikings" are supposed to be murderers/criminals just as others are builders and heroes. In micro, it's debatable whether it was ever done under the official auspices of the Coalition or by freelancers, etc. Certainly possible as a Cosmic Fire type incident where the commander is sacked.
It's difficult to really see the point of an objection to "retcon" canon when the discussion is about Dave's vague references as to what he would have done if the TNE line had continued, but at any rate, I certainly agree that no matter what the Star Vikings did, it could certainly have been perpetrated by a small faction.
Interestingly, I've always sort of imagined a "best intentions" sort of scenario, as opposed to intentional Sherman-esque cruelty as a rational strategy, but it could work either way.
You catch the gist of the political analogy perfectly! The analogy to the nuking of Capital would be taking OIF more than a couple steps further to the nuking of Baghdad, Al Kut, Saddam/Sadr City, etc to get Saddam (to get all of the bodies/doubles he could switch to). I was actually deployed to Iraq and would dispute your characterization just as I'm sure a member of the RCMC might dispute the necessity of nuking millions of Lucan's slaves and the heritage of the Third Imperium to try to snuff out his meta-identity.
It should be more debatable like Iraq than Dresden, where firebombing and attrition warfare were the norm. Even Hiroshima or Nagasaki would've NEVER seen the flight crew of Enola Gay branded as "Vikings" and their banishment accepted by the US government.
This is straying even further into real world politics, which I can certainly argue endlessly, but would divert the point of the thread very sharply. But suffice it to say that WW2 and the Iraq War represented very different social and political situations, both here and abroad, so I don't really think there's an analogy to the Star Viking atrocity. There may be more to find in Vietnam, since there the public does become influenced by the revelation of war time atrocities.
That might be YTU certainly but in my RC campaigns, I always had more than Stardust/Moonshadows, Cold Recovery, and Diplomacy missions than Smash & Grabs.
"Quick and dirty" solutions are not necessarily violent ones, they are simply off the cuff. The entire RC operations is, to a certain extent, somewhat ramshackle. You can see it in the adventure modules time and again when potentially unaligned PC's interact with the RC planning committee and even potentially the Sec-Gen.
The capital of the thousand year empire of Humaniti, that flourished over the widest span and highest technology in human history? What emotional attachment did Europe have for Rome, despite a millennium of conquest and hardly egalitarian hegemony? Quite a lot when you look at Byzantium, the Carolingians, Holy Roman Empire, etc etc. Lucan was the analogy to Nero and while horrid many others would still remember with nostalgia the golden age of Strephon, and there would be those looking to Arbellatra and Cleon (more from the Regency and those worlds in the Wilds that came under it's influence) just as those from our own history would discount Caligula and Nero and point to Augustus and Julius Caesar and Scipio Africanus.
This is why the Fall of Rome is a terrible analogy for the Collapse. First of all, the end of Rome was a process that occurred over decades, not an apocalyptical sudden event that killed trillions. The conquest of the Americas is a closer analogy to the Collapse than Rome (though still vastly inadequate) because there you have wars that destroys entire cultures and decimates entire peoples.
Although Rome is frequently used on the boards as an analogy for the Collapse, it really is a bad fit. The Fall of Rome did not result in the death of the vast majority of the European population. In fact, it is only in hindsight that we say Rome "fell," as life for most people continued to go on as it had for several decades longer.
The famous deposition of Augustulus notwithstanding, the Fall of Rome mainly affected those at the very top of the political hierarchy. For the average person life would not have changed much, and even for most of the elite they continued in their estates and privileges. It was the invasion of the Lombards in the mid sixth-century that really brought changes to most people's way of life.
Remember, the Hivers step in and help the RC because they are afraid that left to its own devices, the area of the 3I will be populated by xenophobic, technophobic zealots. This does not sound like a people waiting with baited breath the establishment of a new Imperium.
For you, the Collapse seems to be primarily a political event. The overaching authority structure has disappeared, sure, but not much has changed otherwise. However, I think when you imagine the enormity of the Collapse, the fact that trillions died and a society based around high technology becomes victimized by that very technology, you have an event that has profound social and culture implications as well.
Closer you get to Vland, it'd be more analogous to the annihilation of Terra. More than a little nostalgia and sentimental value to the homeworld of a major strain of Humaniti. It's far more valued by many than some random hex world in between that barely has a footnote in Traveller history. It's like Vulcan in Trek or Alderaan in Star Wars.
Of far greater importance, in my mind, is that it isn't associated with Lucan and hence the Collapse, so I can see outrage at its destruction being more likely. The thing is, loyalty to Vland is not so great for Vilani that all Vilani supported the Ziru Sirka in MT. I'm not really sure how much Traveller explores the degree of sentiment held in the 3I over racial identity, but I would imagine that Vland's appeal splits along two basic lines. The first is cultural; those who strongly identify themselves as Vilani are likely to care what happens to Vland. The second is regional if Vland has maintained a degree of importance post-Collapse in the area. Then you have the shock of reducing the local strong man.
I never took the Reformation Coalition or Assembly of Worlds as dissolving. That's more 1248 retconning, canon or not and in any case is changing the context of the debate.
I don't think they have to dissolve, but whatever this act is, it's something that forces a great many people to rethink the basic assumptions under which the entire RC political and social system is based. No WW2 act, or really any act of any war (except the Civil War possibly which is, for obvious reasons, distinct) made us think "hmm, maybe this federal republic thing isn't the way to go." Or that suddenly the empire that killed trillions is looking like a better option.
Sure. You have the Coalition and Ililek Kulligan view down pat but are neglecting the Regency/Norris/Avery view of the Imperium entirely.
Even in the Regency the view of the Imperium is not so straight forward or positive. Remember, Regency society, while claiming to be a continuation of the Imperium, actually undergoes profound political change. This is not what you would expect from conservative retrenchment. Even in the military, that great bastion of tradition, Regency terms are starting to replace Imperial and Domain nomenclature.
By contrast, Byzantine emperors never stopped calling themselves Roman emperors, and the Byzantine word for themselves was "Romans." They continued to lay claim not only to the political inheritance of Rome, they also claimed the territorial jurisdiction of the former united empire. The Regency, on the other hand, actually disclaims the area beyond its border.
This is another reason why Rome is a bad model for the end of the 3I. Italy, Gaul, Spain, North Africa, these lost areas remained largely Romano-native cultures for decades, and they saw no great population loss. The Collapse, on the other hand, killed most people in known space and completely destroyed the social, political, and cultural fabric of the entire galaxy.
At any rate, the view I actually have down pat is that of the Wilds. Why you think they would fondly remember a system of government that resulted in the ruin of everything they'd ever known is beyond me.
It would really sod off the Regency, too and it would make political relations between the RC and Regency... messy.
